
Class _L44^ 
Book JLil 






-fer^T 



The Dual Revolutions. 




ANTI-SLAVERY 



AND 



PRO-SLAVERY. 



BY S. M. JOHNSON. 



BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED BY W. M. INNES, 

ADAMS KXPRKSS BUILDING. 






18G3. 



-e==^ 




The Ddal Revolutions. 



ANTI-SLAVERY 



AND 



PRO-SLAYERY. 



BY S. M. JOHNSON. 



BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED BY W. M. INNES 

ADAMS EXPRESS BUILDING. 

1863. 



til 
Ltd 



.nr 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 



He wlio shall succeed in writing a perfect history of 
American Abolitionism, including its last great triumph, 
under Mr. Lincoln's new government — he, who shall suc- 
ceed in a perfect analysis of the measures and teachings of 
that pestilent brood of fanatics and madmen, and shall 
trace out and record their efforts to overthrow the govern- 
ment of the Union, will merit the applause of his country, 
and the approbation of posterity. It is not the purpose of 
these few pages to accomplish this formidable work. They 
are designed only as a sort of reconnoissance — a prelimi- 
nary survey of the ground — and' j)erhaps, to remove some 
of the obstructions which impede the progress of historical 
and critical investigation. It is an ungrateful task ; be- 
cause it involves the exposure of measures and combina- 
tions, not only discreditable to the immediate parties 
thereto, but to the whole American people, who, at least, 
have been silent witnesses of their progress. The seat of 
these infamous combinations is in New England. It is 
New England that has sent down that horde of Appenine 
wolves, which have torn the Union to atoms, and are now 
feeding on its vitals. That the great public is blameless, 
cannot be maintained. That they are, to a certain extent, 
responsible for the evils which now afflict the nation, no 
rational mind will deny. Their crime is that of submis- 
sion, rather than of aggression; — that of being deceived 
and misled, rather than of willful heresy to the Union, and 
dishonest refusal to fulfill its obligations. 

We have caused the rebellion. 1. By subverting the 
government. 2. By our overbearing, insolent and tyran- 
nizing tendencies. 

A great people we are ; it required a great people to do 
what we have done, to sacrifice what we have sacrificed, in 
blood and money. Our merits are great, and our errors 
and crimes are great. I never thought our people as per- 
fect as they thought themselves. We had an admirable 
system of labor and laws. Under these, capital was widely 
distributed, energy concentrated, and the interests of the 
great body of the people promoted. This distribution of 
wealth energized the nation and made it capable of greater 
acts and greater sacrifices, than any other. It did not so 



4 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

much enlighten and elevate the mind, as strengthen the 
body. It enabled ns to provide wonderful means; because, 
in respect to the production of means, no other nation ever 
employed a tithe of the intelligence, which has been em- 
ployed in such production, in the States of the North. The 
truth is, the minds of our people have all been used to make 
money. The transitions from poverty to competence, and 
back again, are as sudden and as rapid as the shifting 
scenes of the stage. We have given little time and re- 
flection to politics, as a principle, and much to politics as 
a trade. The amenities of social and political life have 
not only been neglected, but treated as weaknesses to be 
avoided or condemned. The character of the government 
is less understood now than it was fifty years ago. This 
decline in political knowledge has opened the way for the 
introduction into it of every conceivable heresy. When 
the present struggle commenced, it found us not only pro- 
foundly ignorant of the system we felt called upon to save, 
but of quite all the rules and principles of civilized warfare. 
We regarded the iirst signal of disturbance as an edict of 
excommunication of all the slave States, treated the people 
thereof as outlaws, and sought, with a sort of fiendish 
relish for blood, to exterminate them. 

Nine millions of Southerners suddenly found themselves, 
not only disfranchised, but hunted with all the hounds of 
yfSiX for extermination! That was disunion. That was the 
seal of the covenant of dissolution. That was the proof 
which we offered up to all the world, that, however 
rich we might be in resources — in schools and colleges — 
we were sadly poor in civilization, policy, humanity and 
good piractical sense. We wanted to fight, in order that 
we might exterminate the rebels. We would not have an 
accommodation of differences ; because we were strong 
enough to put them down, and we wanted the satisfaction 
of doing it with a sort of ante-christian vengeance ! It was 
in fact the right arm of the North — so we thought — which 
constituted tlie government of the Union. It was very 
insolence, in anybody, to question the power of that arm. 
It could hardly endure the existence of the States. There 
was rivalry in the States. We could not brook the thought 
that there should be any other governing power on this 
continent, than the Union. The South dared to think 
differently ; and she must be punished. We raised 
armies — great armies — to ])ut the South down — literally 
to put tlie South down! The North was all loyal — the 
South was all disloyal, and they were disloyal to the best 
government, and the best public opinion, in the world — 
the immaculate judgment and public o})inion, of the North I 
As the North was great and good, so the South was evil- 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 5' 

minded, contentious, wicked — outlaws. They had ofiended, 
even in contending for their rights ; for the North was 
better than the Union — better than the Constitution. 
They were rich, powerful and aftnost omnipotent. They 
were humane, philanthropic and religious. They recog- 
nized, to be sure, the forms of the Federal Constitution ; 
but they had advanced a few steps above all human con- 
trivances of the kind, where they discerned a higher and a 
better law. This law, it was their duty to enforce, just as 
it is the duty of the Christian missionary, to enlighten the 
heathen and convert the infidel. The South was the great 
Heathen in the sight of the Northern mind. She must be 
converted — she must have the atonement of blood- — the 
reconciliation of slaughter. We must inflict heavy wounds 
upon all her people, and then set our surgeons at work to 
bandage them up. At least it would advance the science 
of surgical anatomy ! Felons are given up to the dissect- 
ors. The South were all felons. They had rebelled 
against the North. They ventured even to think their 
morality was as good as the North. They dared to ques- 
tion the philanthropy of the abolitionist, and to suggest 
that the field of genuine benevolence amongst the poor of 
the free States was broad enough, and inviting enough, to 
occupy all their men and means. That was a great 
offence. Resistance was nothing but impudence and inso- 
lence. There was no actual criminality in rebellion, 
because the power to crush it was complete. The crime 
consisted in holding slaves. That was the corpus delicti. 
We punish the Criminal for what he does, not for what he 
said, when arrested, or even for his actions under arrest. 
The oiFence consisted, in fact, in violating our higher 
law, which prohibits slavery. It was aggravated by as- 
sumptions ^f equality with us, in morals, in religion, and 
even politics. Before our new dispensation, the South was 
our equal ; when we passed under the full blaze of its en- 
lightening power, they became our wards. We had be- 
lieved, with them, in the efficacy of constitutions of govern- 
ment — in the equality of all the States, as members of tlie 
Union — in the sovereign right of each State to regulate its 
own internal polity, in its own way. That was under the 
old covenant — when we were all heathens together. Light 
broke in upon us, but not upon the South. That was 
what divided us. It sent us ahead and them backwards. 
These observations are put forth with a view of defining 
the position of the parties ; as one would present the law 
that has been violated before demanding the conviction of 
the culprit. The people constitute the tribunal before 
whom the law and the facts should be fairly stated. It is 
as much the interest of good men to protect tlie innocent 



fi THE DUAL KE VOLUTIONS. 

as to punish the guilty. The country accuses Mr. Lin- 
coln's government of high crimes. If the people of the 
North liave blundered and sinned, that is no reason why 
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward should do the same. They 
were elected to office in the conviction that they were 
statesmen. To he less than statesmen, was to assure the 
failure of the administration to do its duty ; and this, in 
such times, is a crime. Mistakes are crimes. To do too 
little is a crime. To do too much is a crime. 

The administration commenced their work by over-esti- 
mating the power of the North, and under-estimating that 
of the South. They imbibed the popular notion that num^ 
hers are everything — that numbers have more strength, 
more money, more material, more mind than what Mr. 
Lincoln would call lesser numbers; and that numbers, in- 
cluding material, are ubiquitous. This was not the only 
blunder ; they regarded numbers as the government. The 
Constitution they proposed to protect and defend, was the 
popular Hue and Cry. They knew no other law. They 
imagined, that obeying the impulse of the nation, they 
were safe. That impulse they did obey; and there their 
obedience ceased : in all else, they set up for themselves. 
The house was in disorder, and they could run riot in 
theft, plunder and murder. Anarchy does not call people 
to account, it does not punish crime ; it makes it. 

The fruits of this species of political ethics are the same in 
all climates, in all places and amongst every people. They 
are sweet to the first taste, but grow bitter, repulsive and 
intolerable to the second. The power that oppresses is im- 
posing and even agreeable to all save its victims. One by 
one these are numbered till the majority have suffered. 
Then the fruit becomes bitter — insufferably bitter. The 
people denounce what they a few months before-applauded 
to the echo. To be practical as well as speculative, Mr. 
Lincoln's government, a year ago, though the worst in the 
world, was the most popular. More was done for it, less 
was required of it ; more was said in its praise, less was 
done to deserve it, than any other government. Everything 
was wrong ; it was wrong in its spirit — wrong in its prin- 
ciphis, wrong in its policy, wrong in its acts — it was wrong 
in everything. It was right in nothing, save that it did 
unquestionably represent the impulse of the people of the 
Nortli. We elected Mr. Lincoln to be President of the 
United States — to be the head of a government of laws — of 
a perfectly organized system ; he became the President of 
an ill-omened, ranting impulse. We thought he had a 
sober-minded, clcar-lieadcd constituency ; whether he had 
or not, those wei'e tlie (jualities we expected liim to exhibit. 
The peo))le did not. swear, like Mr. Lincoln, to "protect 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 7 

and defend " the Constitution. They entrusted everything 
to him. They made the laws that they might he shielded 
against the evils of their own passions and impulses. They 
preferred a government to a mob. They made Mr. Lincoln 
President of their government ; and he became the pre- 
siding genius of their mob. He heard only the Hue and 
Cry ; and this gave him a mortal hatrefl to the judiciary. 
The judiciary is the antipode of the mob. It is the medi- 
cine administered to the sick body politic. It is offensive 
to the jjeople only when they turn back to destroy them- 
selves. Mr. Lincoln became the leader of a grand emeute 
where the people turned back upon themselves. His logic 
led him to say: " It is better to build a new house than 
repair the old one." The improvidence of passion is pro- 
verbial. Seeing it required but a moment to destroy, he 
imagined a moment would be enough to rebuild. He tore 
down the old house of our fathers, and left us shelterless — 
such of us as his evil mind did not put into the out-houses 
— the forts and prisons — of the old constitutional castle. 

That we had serious difficulties to contend with, when Mr. 
Lincoln came into office, all admit. They required a steady 
hand, and an honest heart, to keep them under the control 
of peaceful remedies. They had been of slow, but mali- 
cious, origin and growth. They embraced a radical, but 
purely artificial, antagonism, between the great North and 
the great South. It is a singular feature in the intercourse 
of men that, while the union of Northern and Southern 
labor has produced the highest conditions of prosperity and 
happiness, it has ever been the source of individual 
differences, contentions and strife. All wealth is the net 
product of labor. In tropical regions, where the soil is 
fruitful and products command ready markets at high rates, 
the profits of labor are vastly greater than in more north- 
ern latitudes. This difference is principally due to two 
causes : 1. The expenses of labor in the warm climates are 
much less than in the cold. 2. The peculiar products of 
the former command more universal markets than the lat- 
ter. The great consuming populations of the earth inhabit 
the colder regions, where, in order to meet the rigors of cli- 
mate, more is required to sustain animal existence. Hence 
it is that in estimating the grand productions of a people, 
the question of climate is considered, for animals, through- 
out their entire range, are consumers. The census presents 
the total production of hay and its value^ and it is found, 
perhaps, to equal that of cotton and its value. The former 
is an article of animal consumption. It is raised for the 
very purpose of sustaining the animal economy, indirectly 
for the benefit of man ; while cotton is an article adapted 
to the direct use of man. So of sugar ; so of rice ; so of 



8 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

coffee ; so of tobacco ; and so of quite all the products of 
the tropical regions. Tliese interesting facts prove most con- 
clusively that there is no real antagonism between the North 
and the South. What, then, is the ground of difference ? 

It is a question of temperament, and, consequently, of 
intellect and morals. The North are more phlegmatic. 
They are a cold, calculating, industrious, frugal race. Their 
industry, economy and frugality have made them rich ; for 
they have wonderful enterprise, and have laid all the world 
under contribution to their enterprise. They have, for 
more than a century past, been the machinists, the manu- 
facturers, the factors, the capitalists, the school teachers, 
the inventors, the e^gineers, and, to a great extent, the 
lawyers, doctors and mechanics of the South. The profits 
accruing to the North through these sources are beyond cal- 
culation. Profits are in the foreground of every picture of 
Northern enterprise. That is the principle, the policy and 
the law of Northern society. Nor is it to be deprecated 
when kept within the bounds of reason. It is only the in- 
solence of wealth and the trickery of enterprise that w^e 
would condemn. If the North have an excess of the coun- 
terfeit, the South are sadly deficient in the genuine. There 
is no antagonism between the honest labor of the two regions 
— none between the honest minds of the two regions. It 
is the corrupt, the ambitious, the sinister, the fraudulent, 
the self-opiniated and Fanatical men of the two sections, be- 
tween whom there is a gulf of separation. These latter 
parties have got the control ; and, getting it, they of the 
North pointed with insolent manner to their majorities, 
their power, their numbers and their money ! These were 
the weapons to adjust questions of difference ; for differ- 
ences, with low minds, beget thoughts of dominion. Num- 
bers and muscle were, in the view of Mr. Lincoln's gov- 
ernment, the proper instruments to be wielded : the 
North was stronger than the South ! The question 
was no longer whether the Union should be maintained ; it 
was, whether numbers and money, should have dominion 
over Mr. Lincoln's lesser numbers and money. The sober 
minds of the nation wanted the old government in all its 
integrity. They wanted it for Avhat it had done and for 
what they knew it could do. They wanted it for its memo- 
ries and its benefits. They knew that justice alone could 
restore it — stern political justice. There was no justice 
outside of the compact that formed the Union. Our real 
differences were all political — we were rent asunder by 
o])inions. It was o])inions that divided us — opinions that 
violated the Constitution. The North condemned slavery. 
That was the right of the North. It was the opinion of the 
North. The only question was how that opinion should 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 9 

be exercised and where. It assumed the most offensive and 
aggressive form — it assailed the compact of Union. It ab- 
rogated its covenants. It denounced its morality. It raised 
up against it a higher law — a law that absolved the people 
from allegiance to their own Constitution. It interposed the 
power of Sovereign States to obstruct the enforcement of the 
constitutional rights of the citizens of other sovereign States. 
It created and legalized secession by denying the sovereignty 
of the Union over the interests delegated to the United States. 
It was anti-slavery Opinion that did all this. It in- 
augurated revolution — and it was organic, radical, and 
successful revolution. It was successful; because, in its 
very nature, it destroyed the integrity of the government ; 
and this was done by the States which created it. A lesser 
infraction could not have touched the integrity of the 
system — a lesser infraction could not have violated the 
letter of the compact. It required the parties to the gov- 
ernment — the States — to impair the integrity of the Con- 
stitution. Impelled by anti-slavery Opinion, the States did 
violate the Constitution. They broke the law they had 
made, and had the power to amend or modify. The people 
of the North — the anti-slavery people of the North — the 
New England people of the North — violated, and did what 
they could to obliterate the spirit of the Union. They 
assumed to be better, to be wiser, more moral ; more reli- 
gious and humane, than the South. They were better, 
because they hated negro slavery; they were wiser, because 
they hated negro slavery ; they were more moral and more 
religious for the same reason. No matter how good a 
people are, it is not well to boast of it; no matter how evil 
and deficient a people may be, it is not well to tell them of 
their faults and deficiencies. Where error exists the mind 
must be enlightened without offending the pride — without 
wounding the sensibilities. If the South were in error, 
it was bad policy and bad morals to correct them, by viola- 
ting a compact we had entered into with them. Bad faith 
is a poor remedy, at best, for moral evils. There was no 
others complained of by the North. The Constitution re- 
cognized slavery ; that was the evil. The North recog- 
nized slavery by being parties to the Constitution. They 
agreed thereby to surrender fugitive slaves ; they refused 
to fulfill this agreement, because slavery was wrong — a 
violation of their higher law. The South did not concur 
in the moral judgment of the North, and insisted upon the 
fulfillment of their constitutional obligations. The North 
was inexorable. They threw up barricades against the 
government — they piled up the rubbish of a quarter of a 
century of anti-slavery agitation. They denounced the 
Union, and they legislated against the Union. They made 



10 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

it penal to aid in the enforcement of a federal law, in oppo- 
sition to their higher law — their Puritan anti-slavery 
opinion. They called their law, the law of liberty ; and the 
law of the Union, the law of despotism. They preferred 
the mob to the latter — they raised up mobs to resist the 
execution of the latter. They assailed the government till 
its offices fell into their hands — till the government be- 
came anti-slavery — till their mob got control of it; then 
they came to its support. Before their advent, it was 
treason to maintain the Constitution ; after their advent it 
was treason to oppose their administration. Their Opinion 
became the government — their mob became the govern- 
ment. The President came into office on this Opinion. 
He represented it. He organized armies to enforce it. He 
usurped powers to carry it into effect. This was his coup 
d'etat. This was the consummation of revolution. Anew 
government was made by it — an anti-slavery government. 
They proscribed the Constitution that they might proscribe 
slavery. To put down slavery, it was necessary to put 
down the Constitution ; because that great compact was 
made by independent States, and slavery was purely a State 
interest. There was no way to reach it without obliterating 
State lines, and abrogating State rights and institutions. 
The name and forms of the old system were retained. 
Names and forms are every thing with a mob. Popular 
passion and excitement do not resj^ect principles and cove- 
nants; they violate them. 

We thus have a view of Mr. Lincoln's statesmanship up 
to the present time. It has been eminently successful. It 
has accomplished more than he had a right to expect. Its 
management of the elements has been complete at every 
j)oint. He has consummated a new government — a govern- 
ment of absolute powers. The question of its stability is 
another matter. It is based upon popular passions, 
cemented by bad faith, and enforced by the hand of power. 
It rests upon violated rights, is sustained by sacrificed 
estates, and can be maintained only by the force of arms. 
Resting upon no principle of American society; sanctioned 
by no recognized habit or tliouglit ; enforced by no authority 
which the sober second tliought of tliis people has not con- 
demned, I have no faith in its stability, and no doubt of 
its early and complete overthrow. Whatever may be said 
in behalf of the Old Union, and its adaptation to the ends 
of government, there can be no doubt of the indestructi- 
bility of tlie State systems. Tlirown from their s})heres by 
the violence of the political liurricane, when the storm shall 
subside, tliey Avill return to tlieir orbits, under the great 
social and industrial laws, by which they liave been gov- 
erned for more tlian two centuries. The habits of this 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 11 

people, in this respect, are fixed beyond the power of revo- 
lution. They may, for a day, turn back upon themselves 
and destroy their own works ; but the sober judgment of 
the nation will demand the restoration of the old system ; 
because there is not a vestige of American history, a 
thought, or a memory, which is not identified with it. 
There is not a monument, nor a name, in all past time, which 
does not plead for the rights and sanctify the deeds of the 
States. These recollections are interwoven into the very 
fabric of American society ; and Mr. Lincoln's new govern- 
ment has to contend against them all. They utter a silent, 
but eloquent protest, against the new order, at every turn 
of the eye and every reflection of the mind. He has the 
conscience of the nation against him. His path is strewn 
with wrecks of the past ; every one of which proclaims the 
violated rights of our countrymen. These sacrifices, it will 
be remembered, were made to give effect to anti-slavery Opin- 
ion. They are wonderful indeed. A peaceful and successful 
government ; a united, happy, and prosperous people ; a 
rich, enterprising, and great nation, offered up on the altar 
of a Utopian philanthropy ; a miserable scheme for elevating 
a race which has proven its utter incapacity to sustain the 
responsibilities, and reajj the benefits, of civilized life. 

But the end is not yet. The wheel revolves on its axis. 
Mr. Lincoln and his Puritan cohorts were uppermost a few 
months ago. They are now descending. They have been 
successful, wonderfully successful. They have achieved a 
despotism without a dynasty. They have put in operation 
two revolutionary governments — that of the North and 
that of the South. The former, they created with their 
own hands. It is all their own ; the latter was created by 
the i^eople of the South ; both are parts of the old wreck ; 
and measured by the standard of the Federal Constitution, 
both are illegitimate. That of the South, is sanctioned by 
the people it represents ; that of Mr. Lincoln, is sanctioned 
by the abolitionists. The former is an agency ; the latter 
is a usurpation. The one embodies the principles of popu- 
lar government ; the other violates those principles. The 
one will live in its principles, though it should die in 
its forms ; the other will be hated and detested for its 
tyranny, though it should live in its forms. 

But Mr. Lincoln's government has already failed. The 
popular Hue and Cry made it, the sober judgment of the 
nation has condemned it, and the popular Hue and Cry will 
destroy it. He repudiated the representative principle in 
its constraction, but failed to inaugurate the dynastic 
principle which alone could perpetuate it. His genius was 
all adapted to pulling down the old system. He had no 
power to reconstruct a new one. A prodigal in the use of 



i 



12 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

power, he had no capacity to devise^ a scheme for its entail- 
ment. He made a government for the North, which is 
more detested and hated by the Northern people than that 
of the South. He invaded the South with arms ; he in- 
vaded the North with a pensioned police, the miserable 
dependants upon his power. He destroyed every safeguard 
which had been j)rovided for tlie protection of individuals. 
He abrogated and annulled every institution erected by our 
ancestors, between the Executive and the people. He 
admitted the existence of such laws only as would strength- 
en and enforce his authority. A venal Congress under 
his absolute control, he did not wait even for the forms of 
legislative sanction of his acts. Indecent haste to fortify 
and consolidate his powers has marked every step of his 
progress — every act of his government. Professing devo- 
tion to a system created for the protection of individuals 
and property, he has swept away every guarantee of personal 
rights, every pledge of personal security, and now exacts 
from a subservient Congress an exculpatory law, relieving 
him from the pains and penalties which our institutions 
denounce against the violator of its laws. He thus inaugu- 
rates the principle of Absolutism, by declaring that the 
magistrate may violate, with impunity, the law he was 
elected to enforce. He declares that the officer is not a 
representative, but a dictator — that we are not citizens, but 
subjects. He impeaches himself of higli crimes committed 
against the people, by meanly demanding exemption for 
his illegal acts. A government so wanting in all the at- 
tributes of justice, fidelity and patriotism, could not com- 
mand respect for its economical administration. In the 
present case, whatever luxury has been able to effect in 
wickedness, cruelty in punishment, ])ride in contumacy, 
avarice in plunder, have been exhibited, at every point, 
by Mr. Lincoln's government. Showing a want ot fidelity 
to his trusts, it is not wonderful that his example has been 
followed by his dependants. Nor is the motive, in such 
cases, to be separated from the act. He is a credulous and 
weak man, wlio says Mr. Lincoln is honest in tlie pursuit 
of an object, and dishonest in the use of means to attain it. 
He who violates tlie law in one particular, ought not to be 
entrusted with its execution in another. Honesty, in this 
sense, degenerates into policy; and policy is dictated by dis- 
honesty. This is tlie philosophy of despotism. When the 
fountain is poisoned, it need not be counted that the stream 
will be pure. Political infidelity, in the head oi' the State, 
carries with it its corrupting ])ower to all dependants. 

Having thus stated the immediate process of our domestic 
revolution, by reverting to the acts of the new govern- 
ment and the ends it has achieved, the picture must be en- 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 13 

larged by adding a back ground, if for no other purpose 
than to bring out the prominent figures into still more 
positive relief. When the atmosphere becomes surcharged 
with malignant vapors it invites and feeds the storm that 
is to purify it. We have not suffered without cause. The 
political hurricane that now propels its engines of destruc- 
tion over our devoted country, is no freak or accident of 
nature. We had violated the laws of justice, and are now 
suffering the penalties imposed upon us. I have said that 
our revolution was based on an opinion ; so it was. It 
was anti-slavery Opinion, perfectly organized, and organ- 
ized, too, in direct opposition to the government of the 
Union. The result shows that it was stronger than the 
Union. It elected Mr. Lincoln, in opposition to the Union — 
in contempt of the Union. He was its candidate, and fail- 
ing in faith to everything else, he has been, so far, the 
President of this Opinion, and the enemy of the Union. 
It is idle to contend for any other construction of the past. 
Mr. Lincoln may profess friendship for the Union ; but 
what say his acts ? Do they prove him to be sincere in 
his attachment to that Constitution, which he violates at 
every turn ? And what are the tendencies of these viola- 
tions ? Do they not point, every one of them, as well by 
their inherent character, as by the jjersons affected, to 
Emancipation? Have we the old altars, the old ministers, 
and the old ritual ? Do we believe in the efficacy of the 
same jDrinciples? Is Mr. Lincoln, who tramples under 
foot every maxim, usage, doctrine and covenant of the old 
system, the President of the United States ? He has estab- 
lished a new standard of allegiance and imposed penalties 
for its violation. Do these things bespeak his devotion to 
the Constitution, and his determination to maintain it? 
It is not his words, but his acts, that give us testimony. 
Gro to the public Forts erected to defend the people against 
aggression from without ; let our imprisoned citizens tell 
the story of 4;heir wrongs and oppressions. Ask for the 
warrant under which they were incarcerated. Demand 
the accusations against them. Publish the record. Read 
from the Constitution, that " The right of the people to be 
secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, 
and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause sup- 
ported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing 
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be 
seized." That " no person shall be held to answer for a 
capital or other infamous crime, unless on a presentment 
or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in 
the land or naval forces, or in the militia, luhen in actual 
service in time of loar or public danger , * * * nor be 



14 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

deprived of life, liberty or property ivithout due process of 
law" — and that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused 
shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an 
impartial jury of the State wherein the crime shall have 
been committed, which district shall have been previously 
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and 
cause of the accusation ; to be confronted with the wit- 
nesses against him ; to have compulsory process for ob- 
taining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance 
of counsel for his defense." 

These covenants of the Constitution warrant the citizen 
to arraign before the great tribunal of the nation, the vio- 
lators of its laws. The culprits, though high in authority, 
are amenable to this tribunal. They have perverted the 
public trusts, committed to them, to ends of oppression and 
wrong. They have exercised thepowers, temporarily lodged 
in their hands, for the purpose of preserving, protecting 
and defending the institutions of the country, to destroy 
those institutions, and deprive the people of life, liberty and 
property, without cause, and without warrant or process of 
law. They have abolished the free system of our laws ; 
they have suspended every tribunal of justice created for 
the protection of the citizen against the hand of power. 
Having swept away all guarantees of personal liberty, and 
property, and extended the executive power, so as to bring 
every man in this great country within its grasp, they have 
appealed to the legislature not only to sanction their usurpa- 
tion and infidelity, but to exculpate them from criminality 
and release them from responsibility for their crimes. They 
have thus violated the liberty and sacrificed the property of 
the citizen, and then sought to deprive him of the remedies 
which are his by the rules of every civilized government. 
They dare not trust their case to the judgment of the peo- 
ple whose cause they pretend to espouse. They violate the 
law, and then try themselves upon their own indictment. 
They impeach themselves of disloyalty to the Constitution 
and then wipe out the offence by an act ofexculpation. 
This is Mr. Lincoln's government. This is the principle, 
the policy and the statesmanship of anti-slavery ! This is 
the Opinion which the American people have adopted in 
the ]dace of their constitutional Union ! 

It is not the first time in the history of nations that an 
Opinion has overthrown a government and become endowed 
witli the powers of State. Edmund Burke, speaking of the 
French revolution, near the close of the last century, says : 
" Opinions Avithout any experimental reference to their ef- 
fects, wlien once tliey take strong liold of the mind, become 
the most operative of all interests, and, indeed, very often 
su})ersede every otlier." This anti-slavery Opinion of the 



THE DUAL KEVOLUTIONS. 15 

Puritan States has been the growth of years. It liad its 
origin in England. It was reproduced in New England. 
It took strong hold of the Puritan mind. It soon became 
a fixed political dogma. I adopt the language here of Mr. 
Burke, in reference to French affairs. He says : "I al- 
lude to this part of history, only, as it furnishes an instance 
of that species of faction which broke the locality of public 
affections, and united descri])tions of citizens more strangers, 
than with their countrymen of different opinions." This 
language conveys the precise truth in regard to our affairs. 
I propose to show how our oj)inions have effected the over- 
throw of the Union. 

We established a purely political government. Its powers 
embrace only specified political interests. The moral in- 
terests of society, embracing education, police, all the do- 
mestic concerns of the people ; all municipal regulations ; 
all social government, appertain exclusively to the tStates. 
Slavery is one of these interests. It exists by virtue of no law. 
It is not a municipal institution, because its tenures have no 
affirmative legislative foundation. The people tacitly and 
prescriptively recognize the right of certain persons to 
have and enjoy the labor of negroes. This right is precisely 
the same as that of persons in a free State, to all personal 
property. It is the subject of legislation only so far as is 
necessary to adjust conflicting claims of individuals. to it. 
Slavery existed in twelve of the original thirteen States. 
It had the same origin and status in all. It was not created 
by the statute law of either. Its abolition was a municipal 
regulation. Slavery was the normal condition of American 
society. It might exist everywhere, unless prohibited by 
affirmative State legislation. The late Mr. Justice Story, 
of the Supreme Court, speaking of the fugitive clause of the 
Constitution, says it was adopted "to secure to the citizens 
of the United States the complete right and title of owner- 
ship of their slaves, as property, in any State in the Union 
into whi^h they might escape from the State where they 
were held in servitude." He adds: "The full recogni- 
tion of this right and title was indispensable to the security 
of this species of property in all the slaveholding States ; 
and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of the domestic 
interests and institutions that it cannot be doubted that it 
constituted ix, fundamental article, without the adoption of 
which, the Union could not have been formed. ' ' This doctrine 
met the express concurrence of all the judges. In regard 
to the status of slavery in the Union, it is final. These 
views, in connection with the fact that slavery is the nor- 
mal condition of our society — is a prescriptive institution, 
and not municipal — make it perfectly conclusive that its 
distinct recognition constituted, in the words of Mr. Story, 



16 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

a fundamental principle of the Union, That it was re- 
garded as a })re.scriptive institution of society, and received 
as such by the States and the people, is proven hy the fact 
that it continued to exist in the District of Columbia after 
its cession by Maryland and Virginia to the Federal gov- 
ernment. Neither of those States had, by law, ordained 
slavery. The adoption of their laws by Congress, in be- 
half of the District, after its cession to the United States, 
did not affect, in any manner, the right of the people to 
hold slaves. It was prescription or custom which estab- 
lished that right. The emancipation of all slaves, in the 
District, in April last, on the other hand, prohibited slavery 
— proscribed the custom under which slavery existed. So 
it has been in all the States where it has been abolished. 
The prescriptive interests of every community embrace quite 
all the concerns of society. The State assumes the right to 
regulate or abolish them on moral, religious or economical 
grounds. In this category we may name ardent spirits, 
indecent pictures, gaming, the protection of animals, birds, 
fish and numerous other interests. 

With these general principles before the reader he will 
be able, the better, to appreciate the grand process of aboli- 
tion in the United States, and the revolution it has effected 
in the government of the Union. It is a question of cause 
and effect. It is common to say, that the election of Mr. 
Lincoln, in itself, was justly offensive to the slave States. 
As the stone that caps the column completes the structure, 
so the election of Mr. Lincoln did unquestionably finish the 
work of treason to the government. By itself it was 
nothing ; as it organized and consolidated the opinion upon 
which he was elected, it was everything. It was a most 
grave event in our history ; because it armed a great family 
of incendiaries and put torches in their hands with which 
to murder the people and fire their homes. It made a mob 
of a great nation of industrious, honest, frugal and happy 
people. It filled their minds with amtjition, their hearts 
with malice, and their hands with plunder. It is said, I 
know, that the South seceded from the Union and first 
turned its armies upon our people. The historian will not 
confound immediate with remote causes ; he will not permit 
the laM mistake to cover all its antecedents. That is the 
popuhir ])bil()sophy which lives and flourishes onlysolong as 
popular ])assions jirevail. It is the pliiloso])hy of ])assion. 
The last mistake was, in my judgment, the inopportune se- 
cession of the Soutli. In the movement of States the viola- 
tion of the laws of discretion, from whatever motive, is 
a liigh crime. A political blunder, involving liasty action, 
tliougli tlic cause may be ever so good, is a liigh crime. 
The South was not ready for Counter Revolution. She 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. ■ 17 

was without arms, ammunition, or means of defence. She 
had not exhausted all efforts at conciliation and compromise. 
She did not appreciate the solid friendship of great num- 
bers — millions I may say — of the Northern people. Se- 
cession at the time, then, was a blunder — a great crime. 
The first grand pervading, persistent, and criminal mis- 
take, was the agitation of the slavery question. I 
apply to the latter the mildest terms. We see in it a con- 
tinued effort to subvert this government, growing in mag- 
nitude, in power, in energy and bitterness, through forty 
years of our history. It was organized, in fact, by the Mis- 
souri Compromise, which was an act of Congress, creating 
a distinctive political North, and a political South. It 
created, by this process, hoo governments, under the same 
organic law, prohibiting in one what was permitted in the 
other, thus ordaining a positive inequality, in political 
rights, between citizens of the same common country. If 
Congress possessed constitutional authority to enact such a 
law, the policy of the act was utterly indefensible, because, 
at best, it proposed the compromise of a moral question, by 
dividing it in the centre, as one would divide an orange, 
without the remotest reference to practical remedies for the 
moral evil involved, if it existed. Judged by the lights of 
subsequent events, it is made perfectly clear, that while 
the ostensible object of the enemies of slavery, in the Mis- 
souri legislation, was to limit its extension, the real object 
was to inaugurate the principle that Congress had the 
power to control it. The successful issue of that struggle 
brought the whole question before the nation. It was 
opened at once in every Congressional District. It per- 
vaded all society. The issue between the two interests was 
completely nationalized. Abolitionism at last became 
thoroughly organized, on the one hand, as slavery was 
organized on the other. That was the beginning of the 
end. It measured the ground and prepared the duelists 
for the fight. The two parties, thus created by act of Con- 
gress, went to work to strengthen their positions and 
sharpen their weapons. The aggressive power was anti- 
slavery, because slavery was the normal condition of all the 
States, as anti-slavery was the municipal condition of the 
free States. The North, thus relieved by act of Congress, 
from the comities of the Union, and established upon an 
independent, free territory ; a territory no longer the 
common property of all the States, but devoted exclusively 
to the free States, as was expected, at once planted itself 
upon an independent anti-slavery basis. The roads being 
all opened to the national legislature, the North saw that, 
by virtue of its majorities, in spite of the check which the 
organization of the Senate interposed, it would be able, in 



18 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

a little time, to overwhelm and degrade the minorities of 
the slave States. The scheme was as profound as it was 
siihtle and ingenious. It proposed the subversion of the 
Union by the votes of the people of the free States, that 
the people of the North should be educated into treason to 
the Constitution — that their very habits of thought, all 
moral precepts, all religious teachings — all popular con- 
ceptions of right and wrong, should be turned against the 
Union. As slavery was recognized by the Constitution, so 
that compact must be destroyed. As the liberty of the 
white race found its only exemplification in the institu- 
tions of this country, so must these be sacrificed and de- 
stroyed. As slavery was hedged in behind the government 
of the Union, and the liberty of man was centered in the 
American system, it became necessary, as a means to 
an end, that all should be offered up on the altar of anti- 
slavery. That was the sacrifice which the people were called 
upon to make in order to free the enslaved Africans. Nor, 
if we admit the premises of the fanatics, are they illogical. 
They deny the right of man to hold man in bondage. The 
corollary of the proposition follows, it is the duty of every 
human being, in or out of bondage, to aid, to the extent of 
his means, to destroy slavery. It is not a mere trespass, in 
this sense, but a violation of God's laws affecting soul and 
body. Under this inexorable logic, if to free the four mil- 
lion slaves of this country, it should require the death of 
twenty-five million whites, it must be done. 

The fight was not then urged against slavery alone, it 
was waged against the Union and the States; against the 
entire structure of American society. It was waged against 
our very patriotism; against all received convictions of 
duty; against our social and religious institutions. The 
early sundering of the Methodist Church was its first great 
triumph. Less successful with other religious organiza- 
tions, they succeeded, nevertheless, with all, excepting per- 
haps the Catholics and Episcopalians, in sowing the seeds 
of disunion — in destroying the oneness of their labors. 
These triumphs, though not directly assailing the integrity 
of the government, struck at the very root of the system. 
It was a government of laws, of constitutions, of covenants ; 
and by its theory and practice, the people were made the 
arbiters thereof. Hence every event wliich separated the 
])eo])le of the two regions was jsro tanio a dissolution of the 
Union. Tlie Missouri Compromise not only separated them, 
but created boundaries for tliem. It organized them. It 
vitalized and consolidated abolitionism as an aggressive 
power. It opened to it a field for its labors. It gave effect 
to majorities in tlieir assaults ui)on tlie Constitution. It 
destroyed the powers of minorities. It was dissolution. It 



i 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 19 

broke the religious ties which, bound together the greatest 
evangelical society in America. It made a religion for the 
North and a religion for the South — morals for the North 
and morals for the South — a Saviour for the North and a 
Saviour for the South ! Was this not dissolution, disrup- 
tion, and antagonism? Were our political bonds strong 
enough to resist the power of the pulpit, the press, and 
the demagogue? Three thousand clergymen hurled anath- 
emas at the late Senator Douglas for denying the consti- 
tutional jurisdiction of Congress over the subject of slavery! 
Ten thousand clergymen, addressing audiences numbering 
probably three millions of men, denounced slavery, and 
called down the vengeance of Heaven upon it. Was this not 
disunion ? Did such acts strengthen the bonds of fraternity 
and good neighborhood, between the North and the Soutli? 
Could the covenants of the Constitution be enforced under 
such teachings? Is it any wonder that the mob became 
superior to the obligations of law and the force of duty? 
That the mob should supersede both? That patriotism 
and integrity in the public councils, that fidelity in the 
executive ofiice, that honesty in the citizen, should, under 
such circumstances, give way to disloyalty, infidelity and 
plunder? Justice was the power that made the Union; 
could it be maintained by injustice, fraud, and oppression? 
It is not to be disguised that the cause of abolition has, 
for more than ten years, been superior to the men of the 
Northern States. It had gained a wonderful influence and 
jDOwer by the continued ascendency of the old democratic 
party. That party never, as an organization, yielded to it 
the least countenance, either in or out of the government. 
It denounced the prevalence of its doctrines as incompatible 
with the covenants of the Constitution. It declared them 
essential disunion. It resisted their adoption with all its 
influence. The opposition to the democratic party at 
length, in 1854, under the direct leadership of Mr. Seward, 
adopted a purely anti-slavery platform, and enlisted the 
remnants of every faction of the Northern mind in its 
service. The occasion for this new organization was found 
in the formal repeal of the Missouri Compromise, by what 
is known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, of the late Senator 
Douglas ; an act which afforded a pretext for renewed 
agitation of the slavery question. There was nothing in 
the repeal itself, because the compromise acts of 1850 had, 
to all intents and purposes, annulled the compromise of 
1820. It was denounced, nevertheless, as the sacrifice of 
freedom to slavery; and thousands of ignorant and ex- 
citable people, of the free States, believed the North was 
about to be invaded, and, unless prompt resistance was 
made, conquered by the advocates of slavery ! Mr. Seward, 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

in a speech at Columbus, Ohio, warned the people of that 
State of a deliberate purpose, on the part of the South, to 
invade and conquer Ohio and the entire North, including 
Canada. This may seem to be exaggeration on my part, 
but it is literally true. The North believed it, as much as 
the assertion may reflect on its intelligence and good sense. 
The Slavery campaign, it was declared, was opened by 
the Kansas-Nebraska legislation ; that Kansas was about 
to be invaded and subdued to slavery ; and that, thus 
finding a base for operations, it would be continued over 
tlie entire North, and into her Britanic Majesty's posses- 
sions in Canada. This was not a mere accidental extrava- 
gance of utterance by an excited political orator. It was 
the deliberate speech of the first anti-slavery man of this 
country. If Mr. Seward did not himself believe in the 
truth of his own declarations, he certainly intended that 
his audience, who heard him, and his countrymen, who 
were sure to read what he said, should believe them. They 
did believe them ; they did more ; they acted on them — 
they acted on them as a declaration of war by the slavery 
of the South against the freedom of the North. It was 
thus that abolitionism became a political dogma. It then 
assumed the attitude and the menace of a hostile party. 
It made war upon slavery — it made war upon the Consti- 
tution which protected slavery, as a covenant with hell — 
as a compact with the Devil. It was the people of the 
North that waged tliis war. The Suite governments in 
their hands, they set to work to annul the constitutional 
covenant for the surrender of fugitive slaves. They de- 
nounced it as treason to entbrce it. They stimulated mobs 
to resist it. The mob, as I have said, thus became the 
government. The South we;e every where denounced as 
steeped in the moral guilt of slavery. Northern pulpits 
were closed to the ministrations of Soutliern clergymen. 
The negro was deified; the white man was his oppressor, 
his enemy, and the enemy of humanity ! Was this not 
an opinion capable, when thus armed, of destroying the 
Union? Could the two parties exist under the same gov- 
ernment? If tliere was a moral and religious gulf between 
them, which made it sacrilege to lend the sacred altars of 
Christianity in the North, to the ministers of the South, 
was it possible that the two peoples could maintain friendly 
political relations with each other? Was not the inference 
of the Southern mind, under such circumstances, inevitable, 
that the North desired to sunder tlie political ties that 
bound them to tlie Soutli? Did not those ties jiractically 
cease, when tlie North refused to carry out the covenants of 
the Constitution ? 

I am perf(!Ctly aware of tlie prii)cij)le that governments 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 21 

should not be altered, modified or changed, for light or 
transient causes ; that mere verbal criticisms upon the in- 
stitutions of the people, here or there, are not sufficient to 
justify such change, much less to warrant hostile revolu- 
tion. I would go farther, and maintain, that none but 
the most insufi'erable evils, involving the grossest injustice 
and bad faith, can justify a resort to arms for the pur- 
poses of revolution. The public mind of every people is 
proverbially fickle and unreliable. That which is de- 
nounced to-day, is apt to be applauded to-morrow. But 
the revolution, in this case, commenced and was consum- 
mated in the North. The onus of its defense rests upon 
the North. It tore down the old system. It left not a 
vestige, not a remnant of its former proportions and 
beauty. It substituted abuse and vilification for harmony 
and good neighborhood. It created new systems of morals, 
and new articles of religious faith, for the respective 
regions. It dissolved quite all the social ties that bound 
the parties together. The federal capital witnessed the 
existence of a social, a religious and a political North, and 
a social, religious and political South. The lines were as 
distinct as the streets and avenues of the City. It was im- 
possible to conceal the movements of the hostile parties. 
Was this not disunion and disintegration ? Could the 
forms of the government be maintained when its spirit 
had been extinguished by hatred, contempt and malice ? 
The North had not only refused to execute its consti- 
tutional obligations for the surrender of fugitive slaves, 
but the States, by their legislation, had stamped upon the 
covenant the seal of condemnation. This action did not 
alone involve the forfeiture ancl sacrifice of faith ; but it 
was so performed as to convey a gross insult to the Slave 
States. The Constitution was declared to be a wicked 
covenant which no good man could lend his aid to enforce, 
and which none but evil-minded men would seek to have 
enforced. Every effort to secure the rights of slaveholders 
under it, was denounced as a violation of the laws of 
humanity, of conscience and of justice. The power to 
resist was in the people of the free States; and there was 
scarcely a pulpit, a stage or school house, in all New 
England, that did not fulminate curses and imprecations 
against the man who would not resist the enforcement of this 
law of the Union. The effort too was to mark the refusal, 
by such acts of insubordination, as would seal forever the 
fate of the covenant. This was not secession ; it was revo- 
lution ; it was revolution inaugurated and consummated, by 
the strong against the weak — by majorities against minori- 
ties. It was revolution, because, at the time, tlie federal 
authorities, at Washington, and in the States, sought in 



22 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

200(1 faith, to enforce the constitutional rights of the 
citizen. It was revolution by States, the parties to_ the 
compact which they violated, and which they alone, m a 
technical sense, could violate. It was gross, offensive 
revolution; because it was accompanied by insulting pre- 
tensions of superior morality, by the party which violated 
the law ' The free States thus assailed the government ot 
the Union in the double capacity of rebels and teachers. 
It was the mob and the minister— the thief and the 
apostle— the robber and the magistrate ! The South, like 
Paul the Apostle, were destined, it would seem, to suiter 
most at the hands of their own friends—' ' by perils, by taise 
brethren " Tliey trusted but to be deceived. 

As a mere business partnership between the two regions, 
the North had appropriated three-fourths of its prohts, 
during the entire existence of the concern. An equal propor- 
tion of its dependants and employees resided m the JNortli. 
The business of the house was done m the North, it was a 
Northern concern in its persons, in its profits and m its 
direction. Its revenues were nearly all derived Irom duties 
levied upon imports. These duties were laid with a cbrect 
view of protecting New England Manufacturers I hey 
gave the latter the monopoly of the American markets by 
imposing a tax upon all the manufactures and products ot 
other countries. They said to the people, "you shall not 
buv vour goods in the cheapest market, nor sell them m 
the dearest You shall buy of New England, thougli you 
may have to pay thirty, forty or fifty per centum higher 
rates than like articles could be furnished you by England 
or France. We will adjust a scale of duties so as to pro- 
hibit, to a certain extent, the importation of such articles 
as are manufactured by New England.'' This was done 
on the plea that our manufacturing establishments ought 
to be protected by this kind of discriminating duties, it 
was said they must have protection— that is the great 
agricultural labor of the West, and the So^i l^ must be 
taxed for the benefit of New Enghind. That labor was 
the consumer, and the consumer pays quite all the duties 
collected under discriminating tariffs. 

Thus it was with our business Union. Its direction, its 
economical arrangements, its employees, everytlimg tliat 
makes money— everything that gives preponderance to 
inonev- everything that looks to profits-were concen- 
trated in tlie North. The supplies of the government were 
obtained there. Its arms and implements were made there 
Its ships wore built there. Its commerce was centered 
there. Its laws were made there. The North has absolutely 
controlled the entire economical policy ot the Union tor 
more than forty years. Three-fourths ot all the advantages 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 23 

accruing to individuals under tins policy, have fallen to the 
commercial and manufacturing States of theNorth. Three- 
fourths of all the taxes imposed upon the people to main- 
tain the government, have been paid by the West and South. 

A reference to these features of the system may seem in- 
vidious and uncalled for, at times like the present. They 
may seem insignificant when the government is expending 
two or three millions a day, to destroy the institutions 
under which the West and South have been taxed to the 
extent only of fifty or sixty millions a year, for the benefit 
of New England manufacturers and New York commerce. 
I allude to them not in the spirit of complaint, not to point 
even to the inequality of burdens and advantages under 
the old system, but to show that the disunion party — the 
real disunion party of the country— the Simon Pure rebels 
against the Union, — are those who* enjoyed quite all the 
material benefits which the economical administration of 
the government imparted. Their rebellion then must be 
attributed to a fretful, dissatisfied, complaining nature — 
to a rebellious nature, — that is the word. 

Every intelligent observer of the New England mind 
must have been struck with the superlative estimate which 
the people of that uneasy corner of the Union uniformly 
make of themselves. Their religion is always the purest, 
their morals the most rigid, their schools and colleges the 
best ; their lawyers the ablest ; their legislators the most 
eloquent and profound ; their doctors the most skillful ; 
their teachers, their merchants^ their mechanics, their 
artists, a little better than any other. Nature, one would 
think, had stamped upon the New England mind nothing 
but superlative degrees, being careful to advise her people 
of its generous dispensation. The remarkable feature of 
New England society is found in the fact that they know 
perfectly well every one of their merits, and every one of 
the faults and short-comings of other communities. A 
country that could adopt the vagaries of witchcraft, the 
follies of anti-Masonry, the proscriptions and injustice of 
Know-Nothingism, and the inhumanity of the foreign slave 
trade, could not be relied upon to discharge the obligations 
of the Constitution and perform the duties of citizens of a 
common government, with others. It is not treachery alone 
that violates the laws of a country. It is not inherent in- 
fidelity to trusts, and irresistible tendencies to forfeit the 
public faith, which are most offensive in the New England 
mind. It is an insufferable arrogance — insatiable ambition 
for leadership ; an ungovernable fanaticism. Their society 
is wanting in tone, in magnanimity, charity and in all the 
Christian virtues. Its grand defect, as a society, is an ab- 
sence of logical power — an absence of positive philosophy 



24 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

Self-opiniated and self-adulated — with ejes always in- 
troverted — their premises are never well taken ; their 
conclusions are always false. Never losing sight of 
the main chance, they have contrived, so far, to secure 
quite all the benefits and advantages of the Union, and to 
he the authors and propagators of quite all the heresies 
which have disturbed its tranquility. And when that 
tranquility is broken, it is New England that wins the 
lion's share of government supplies. The present war, 
instead of disturbing the labor and capital of the Puritan 
♦States, has added to the profits of the one, and to the accu- 
mulations of the other. They are actually being enriched 
by what must certainly bankrupt every other region of the 
country. The West and South, through the economical 
policy of the Union, have contributed their money to build 
up the manufacturing interests of the Eastern States, and 
now, when the latter have subverted that Union and brought 
the parties into civil war, they are making colossal fortunes 
out of the disaster. The house has been fired to give em- 
ployment and profits to the thief and the robber ! 

This species of political incendiarism is not a mere erup- 
tive feature of the Puritan mind. It is inherent, constitu- 
tional, hereditary Fanaticism. Wise it may be, sagacious 
it is ; but it is the wisdom of fanaticism ; the sagacity of 
cunning, of policy, of management. It is that kind of cun- 
ning which discerns the advantages and benefits of strife, 
contention and discord. New England has been the great 
beneficiary of the Union. It is impossible, I admit, to 
adjust a system of government, over large territories and 
diversified interests, so as to secure a perfect equality of 
burdens upon all the parts. Ours was no exception. We 
made it as perfect as justice and wisdom could devise. It 
was not, however, as perfect in administration as in tlieory 
— not as pure in practice as in law. It was based on 
the representative principle. This principle introduced 
into it, from very necessity, advocates of peculiar interests. 
Nobody questions the right of the representatives of New 
England to obtain all the advantages possible for that sec- 
tion. The theory u})on which they acted is found in the 
character of the people in whose behalf they labored. 
With a pc)])ulation five hundred thousand less than the 
State of New York, they have twelve members of the Senate, 
almost one-fifth of the body. They had power as well as 
disposition to secure peculiar advantages. They fixed the 
economical policy of the Union. They arranged the details 
of tliat policy so as to turn quite all its incidental and posi- 
tive advantages upon themselves. Had the government 
been all their own, thoy could not have done more for them- 
selves and less for others. Having thus essentially made the 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 25 

government, fhey undertook in very wantonness to destroy 
it. Their meddlinti; fanaticism has literally turned back 
upon themselves. They have destroyed forever that which 
alone raised them to prosperity and happiness. No matter 
what may be the end of the present controversy, its level- 
ing process cannot fail to take away from New England 
the power she has enjoyed, of taxing the industry of other 
portions of the country. She piteously protested, for 
more than forty years, against being thrown into competi- 
tion with the pauper labor of Europe. She told us of her 
inability, without a total overthrow of her great manu- 
facturing establishments, to compete with that labor under 
free trade laws. We then proscribed free trade for her 
benefit, and made her the great beneficiary of the Union, 
whose bounty we extended to her. The money of the South 
and West has been paid to her labor and her capital. We 
adopted a system of odious discriminations to effect this. 
We taxed wool fabrics at high rates for her benefit ; and 
admitted the raw material, of foreign growth, at nominal 
rates, for the same object. We have thus introduced foreign 
wool to compete with our agricultural labor and given it to 
New England manufacturers to be worked up and sold back 
to our own people under protective laws. This kind of dis 
crimination and class legislation, said to the Puritan States : 
' ' You may buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest 
market," — and to the agricultural States, " you shall not 
buy in the cheapest market nor sell in the dearest." 

These things are the legitimate subject of controversy, for 
the purpose of showing, that no measure of advantage in 
the government, could hold that meddlesome people to their 
constitutional covenants. Had it been a question of inter- 
est, they had a motive for honesty — an inducement for 
maintaining the Union. It is thus seen that neither prin- 
ciple, advantage, patriotism, nor the memories and digni- 
ties of nationality, could control them.. They clamored 
against the government till they destroyed it. For more 
than ten years they have not been members of the Union, 
except to reap its rewards, receive its bounties, and under- 
mine its Constitution and laws. This rebellion is their re- 
bellion — this war is their war. It has no other foundation, 
no other purpose; and can have no other end, so long as 
they wield the power, than to force the abolition of slavery. 
It is a war to enforce New England abolitionism. It is 
waged against the North, in its effects, more than against 
the South ; for the North was a greater slaveholder than 
the South : employed more capital, more men, and was 
more dependant for its prosperity upon slave labor, than 
the South, More than half of its foreign and domestic 
commerce was the direct growth of that labor. Out of three 



26 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

hundred and sixty millions of exports, exclusive of the 
precious metals, in ]8G0, two hundred and forty of them 
was the j)rodi]ct of slave lahor. It was Northern capital that 
conducted this enormous business. It was Northern ships 
that carried those products, Northern merchants that 
bought and sold them, and Northern manufacturers that 
supjilied the labor that raised them. The capital of 
the South was almost exclusively invested in the hands that 
worked their estates. The political economist will tellus, that 
it is the union of labor and capital, which produces wealth ; 
and that, under every known combination of this nature, 
capital draws the lion's share. So it has been under the 
union of Northern money with Southern labor. This re- 
bellion strikes a fatal blow at that capital. It destroys the 
most profitable and the most beneficent scheme of labor ever 
devised by man. It is the work of the Puritan States against 
the agricultural States of the Middle, West and South. 

This view of the subject only includes the mediate in- 
terests of the Northern people with Southern slavery. It 
may be said to represent the money of the North. It does 
not embrace the labor of the North, which is directly em- 
ployed in producing fabrics, for which the South supply 
the raw material. The extent of this employment is well 
understood in the rebel States of New England, where its 
benefits have been quite all realized. The sudden with- 
drawal of this labor, though it has seriously affected the 
capital employed in it, has, so far in the war, not been felt; 
as the turn of events lodged the government exclusively 
in the hands of New England men, who have commanded 
the markets which the war has created. An expenditure 
of two millions of dollars a day, in addition to the vast 
original outlay, for im])lements, machinery, vessels, and 
clothing, the greatest share of which the Puritan States 
were called upon to supply, is quite sufficient to compen- 
sate the labor of those States heretofore engaged in the 
production of cotton fabrics. The influence of this vast 
engine of corruption and fraud, wielded by the hand of 
absolute power, and hedged in behind the usur})ed authority 
of a venal Congress, was more than sufHcii-nt to arm and 
consolidate Abolitionism against the Constitution, and more 
than sufficient to po]>ularize the naked military despotism 
cuuceived by that hell-begotten cons])iracy — a conspiracy 
whicli has not only overthroAvn the Union, but has suc- 
ceeded in fastening upon its real friends, the responsibility 
of the act. This last turn of events was, ])erhaps, to be 
ex])('cted. It bears tlie stamp of cuuuiug, for wliicli the 
jjumagers of the game have been distinguished. It is not 
the first time in the history of crime that the culprit has 
raised the Hue and Cry, and aroused the populace in pur- 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 27 

suit of his victim. It is not the first time that the thief 
has hidden himself and concealed his hooty in the crowd 
of pursuers of an imaginary criminal. The great criminal 
of the present war is the Puritan States ; its victims are 
the Middle, Western, and Southern States. The twj former 
are fighting against themselves ; they are fighting shoulder 
to shoulder with their betrayer and destroyer. They are 
fighting against the Union, against their interests, against 
their obligations, against their honor, and, as they will see 
within a twelvemonth, against the conscience of their 
people. They are fighting to put down the Constitution, 
to destroy their industry, to disintegrate their society, to 
demoralize their people, and to degrade their nationalities. 
Under whose direction, by whose counsel and advice, is 
this terrible suicide enacted? 

I will name the inquisition. It is Horace Greeley, Abra- 
ham Lincoln, William li. Seward, Charles Sumner, Wade, 
of Ohio, Wilson, of Massachusetts, Trumbull, of Illinois, 
Chase, of Ohio, Garrison, Phillips, Beecher, and Cheever, 
These are the twelve apostles of infidelity and crime — the 
Satanic Council — who have been chosen to enforce this in- 
fernal atonement of blood — this reconciliation of slaughter ! 
They call it a remedy! They say it is a patriotic impulse 1 
It is a substitute for all that is good in free institutions, for 
all that is reputable in our national character, and for all 
that is successful and honorable in civil society. 

This brings me to state what occurs to me to be the only 
legal remedy for popular diseases, under our constitutional 
government. It is the ballot. The ballot is the organ of 
speech of this nation. It had the power to correct any and 
every abuse of its authority. It had jurisdiction over 
secession ; even secession in the Puritan States. It could 
restore order in the midst of revolution. The directing 
power over everything was in the people. All they wanted 
was time and opportunity^ to speak. This could be done 
through the ballot onlj^ under prescribed forms. In the 
midst of the pending crisis, it was proposed by Mr. Crit- 
tenden and others, in Congress, to arm the ballot instead 
of the people — to give it authority to direct and determine 
the differences between the North and South. Every re- 
publican voted against it. The South at first hesitated ; 
but at length, through its organs, endorsed it. It was the 
remedy of peace. That was what the South wanted ; that 
was just what abolitionism would not, under any circum- 
stances, have. The ballot would maintain the Constitution, 
and, b}' maintaining it, uphold slavery and the rights of 
slaveholders ; that was what abolitionism would not have. 
The ballot would settle and adjust all our differences; that 
was what would kill abolitionism. Peace preserves and 



28 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

strengthens a people ; that was what abolitionism most 
feared. The North must be armed — her majorities must 
be armed ; because they were majorities, and because the 
South was disarmed. They vainly thought arms, to be 
effective, must be in the hands ; they never for once 
thought that arms in the head and heart are more terrible. 
They saw nothing but numbers, money, and credit; they 
did not see that all these have a substitute in resolution, 
conviction, and duty. "Thrice is he armed who hath his 
quarrel just.'' But it was abolitionism, so they thought, 
that could invoke the truth of this philosophical maxim. 
They were fighting against oppression — they were fighting 
against the Union as a mob in the way of the enforcement 
of their liigher law — their abolitionism. Was this not the 
theory of the Satanic Council? Why else did they arm 
against the South, and disarm and imprison the protestants 
of the North ? Why else did they sweep away, as with a 
broom, the rights and guarantees even of the people of the 
free States? Why else, in a word, did they cancel, by a 
single executive blow, the Constitutional Government of 
the Union? Is it common to destroy what one would im- 
prove and purify? to kill what we wish to cure and pre- 
serve? Did their hostility to the South conceal real devo- 
tion and friendship to the old system? Did policy pilot their 
principles, and shelter and conceal their patriotic designs ? 

The answer to these questions is found in the record of 
violated rights and executive usurpations. It is found in 
the fell spirit of abolitionism, which pervades and controls 
every act of the administration, and every movement of the 
army. It is found in the adoption of its schemes of violence 
and fraud everywhere, and the exclusion of every measure 
calculated to stop the war and harmonize the belligerents. 
If the jjeople are so struck with judicial blindness that they 
are unable to comprehend these things, their welfare has 
engrossed too much thought and anxiety. If they are 
willing not only to be grossly deceived and misled, but 
made jiack-horses and sumpter-mules for thieves and rob- 
bers, I do not perceive the difterence, in moral guilt, 
between them and the original Puritan cul})rits. 

But it is said the South commenced the war. That the 
men of the South opened their batteries upon the men of 
the North, I admit. That they inaugurated actual war, I 
also admit. I think it was a great political blunder, and 
tlierefore a crime ; that it was witliout cause, or in oppo- 
sition to tlie ])vinciples of the Federal Government, I deny. 
Tlio South made war against the new government — against 
the new system, — in behalf of the old government, and in 
del'ence of the old system. It was a Avar Avaged against 
the revolutionary government of New England, in defence 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 29 

of the rights of minorities. It was undertaken onl}- 
when the powers of the Constitutional Union were confess- 
edly used to disfranchise and destroy those minorities. It 
was a mistake only in heing out of time, and in using, for the 
moment, the wrong remedy. It was called by a had name, 
and its name gave it an illogical character. The South 
said they had a right, as Sovereign States, to secede from 
the Union. That was an error — a damaging error, for in 
reality they had no such right. Secession w^as a New Eng- 
land remedy and practice, and never should have been 
invoked. It is a mischievous, if not an absurd theory. The 
right of secession could not have been reserved without im- 
parting to the Union an external character, at war with 
the policy of the nation. All governments are supposed 
to be perpetual. A government gains first, recognition, 
and then commands respect by virtue of the evidence it 
is able to exhibit to the world, of its ability to preserve its 
organism and perpetuate its power. Perpetuity is a vital 
element of its character. Besides, there w^ould be no force 
whatever, in a covenant, express or implied, reserving the 
right of secession ; because, no member of the Union could 
ever avail itself of such a right, except for good cause, 
and where the latter exists, it could not be strengthened 
by any reservation in the bond — in other words, no State 
could justify itself for secession, simply, because it had the 
right to secede. Such a reservation would have no force, 
whatever, 1. Because it would be incompatible with the 
policy of the nation. 2. Because it would not be even 
2Jrima facia evidence that the act was right. A promis- 
sory note is prima facia evidence of indebtedness ; but this 
presumption may be rebutted by proof of payment, so that 
the case is made to turn after all upon its merits. The 
rule of law, however, governing notes and bills of ex- 
change, made for the benefit and convenience of trade, is 
hardly applicable to constitutions of government. The 
latter embody fundamental principles which are sup- 
posed to be irrepealable and indestructible. This is their 
character in all cases. When grossly violated, the legiti- 
mate remedy is revolution. There is dignity in the word, 
and gallantry, spirit and resolution in the act. Revolu- 
tions refer, properly, to causes. Grod is the sovereign 
arbiter of causes, as man is the arbiter of covenants. The 
Puritan States overturned the government of the Union, 
and installed in its place a mob. No allegiance Avas 
actually due to that mob from anybody. It was a mob, 
because when they destroyed the old system, they left no 
legitimate power, except the States, to govern. They 
wielded, it is true, the powers of the Union ; but they 
wielded them not in obedience to, but in contempt of the 



!jO the dual eevolutions. 

Federal Constitution. The South warred against this mob. 
Tliey wanted the old system ; and they blundered that 
tlicy ever gave up the name of the old system. There is 
little in a name, it is said ; there was much under the cir- 
cumstances, in the name of the old government ; because 
by using it, the rebels of New England could the more 
certainly mislead the popular mind, and put the constitu- 
tionalists of the Soutli in the wrong. They were not, I 
maintain, altogether in the right upon the main question. 
It does not often happen that great matters of difference 
between nations are so exquisitely balanced as to have the 
right all on one side, and the wrong all on the other. The 
question of slavery in the territories was invoked by the 
North as an instrumentality, not as a measure or principle. 
Abolitionism, it is seen, from the very nature of its 
tlieories, and the ends it proposed to accomplish, cared 
nothing for mere territorial slavery. The territories, lost 
or won, were nothing to them. They raised the point to 
act from, not to act upon. They used the territorial dispute 
as an agency through which to excite and inflame the 
people against slavery in the States. As early as 1841, 
they became convinced that they could never succeed in 
consolidating the North against the Union, so long as 
they suffered themselves to be identified with a party 
having a pro-slavery wing. Hence the rupture with the 
old whig party, and the adoption of a programme which 
made it impossible to extend their lines into the slave 
States. The present Secretary of the Treasury was a leader 
in this work of Independent Abolitionism — Northern 
abolitionism — New England abolitionism. In 1843 he 
was a member of a convention at Buffalo, New York, 
Avhich resolved to "regard and treat the third clause of 
the Constitution, whenever applied to the case of a fugitive 
slave, as utterly null and void, and, consequently, asfoyming 
no part of the Constitution of the United States, ivhenever 
we are called upon or sicorn to support it." Afterwards Mr. 
Butler, of South Carolina, denounced this infajnous act of 
secession, miscalling it a system of mental reservations. 
There was no mental reservation in it ; it was downright 
nullification and subornation of perjury. It was an open, 
flagrant declaration of war against the federal Constitution. 
In ]8r)4 the present republican, or abolition, party was for- 
mally organized, with Mr. Seward at its head. It was 
then believed to be strong enough to wield Northern 
majorities against the Union ; to give practical effect to its 
resolutions of previous years, to nulliiy and make void 
the Constitution, and ordain an anti-slavery government. 
Its power, in this way, to destroy the old system, no man 
of sense and observation could question ; and that the 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 31 

scheme of wielding majorities against the constitutional 
rights of the States and the people, would effect this, was 
equally certain. The organization of the Union was 
accomplished with a direct and express view of protecting 
minorities. To this end it was ordained that the weakest 
State should have a representation in the federal Senate 
equal to the largest ; that none other than expressly 
delegated powers should he exercised ; that all others 
should he reserved " to the States respectively, or to the 
people." The great doctrine of the Union was the protec- 
tion of minorities. This principle of the system was 
assailed hy the organization of the abolition party. That 
party said, "hereafter, majorities shall be supreme." This 
was not secession, it was revolution ; it was complete, 
absolute revolution. This principle was first applied to 
the territories, as the wedge is first inserted into the tim- 
ber it is destined subsequently to rend asunder. Tiie 
South resisted it, and made more of it than the merits of 
the question authorized. They resisted it more on account 
of the insult it covered, than the real sacrifice of rights it 
threatened. Territorial slavery, in every political sense, 
was a pure abstraction. The law of climate and soil had 
settled it. There was not a foot of really disputed ground. 
If, under other circumstances, there had been any doubt 
upon this point, there was another law that had deter- 
mined the matter beyond all question. Slavery is a rela- 
tion of interest, as indicated by its profit and loss account. 
The most profitable fields for its labor were in the slave 
States, and they were broad enough not only to employ the 
four million slaves now held, but quite four times that num- 
ber. There could then be no expansive power, in slavery, 
beyond the limits of the States where it existed. Just as 
men seek the highest markets for the sale of their produce, 
so will slaveholders seek the most profitable field for their 
labor. It was not, then, the slave interests, but thq 
political interests of the South that were menaced by thq 
territorial policy of the abolitionists. It was not slavery 
that was the object of direct assault, but the constitutional 
government of the Union. That must be stricken down, 
and removed, as an obstacle in the way of general emanci- 
pation. It was a covert attack, made as much against the 
North as against the South. It was the substitution of 
the Opinions of New England, in the place of the covenants 
of the Union. The power that impelled this engine of 
destruction was that Opinion. It was proclaimed from 
every pulpit ; it was inculcated at every fireside, and 
taught in every school-house and college of the Puritan 
States. The walls of those houses and colleges, in many 
parts of the country, displayed, in bill-head letters, these 



32 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

insulting words: "Slavery is the unpardonable sin!" 
Nor were there any deceptions practised upon the people 
in these teachings and utterances. They proclaimed an 
exterminating war against the Constitution. They de- 
nounced it as a league with Satan, and declared allegiance 
to it incompatible with the exercise of Christian duties, 
thus making the government an unbearable moral nui- 
sance, which it was God's service to abate. 

It is not my purpose to exaggerate this picture of 
Puritan infidelity and enmity to the Union, and the do- 
mestic institutions of the South. I do not think it in the 
power of any man to do this, having regard to justice and 
truth. That enmity was all that abuse of men, treachery 
to principles, infidelity to covenants, and inborn fanaticism, 
could make it. It was as cunning as it was malignant and 
unfaithful. It had no easy work to accomplish. A skillful 
hand must always be at the helm to guide the pirate crew 
between Scylla and Charybdis. To wield too much power 
would alarm the people ; to wield too little would render 
them unattractive, if not insignificant. The weapon of 
warfare chosen — that of majorities — was, of all others, the 
best and most effective. There is a charm in majorities ; 
the people think they are the directing ^Jower ; they can- 
not see why it is not right that the majority should 
govern ; and they feel that it is the duty of the minority 
to submit. This is the logic of the mob — it is the logic of 
the New England rebellion. When this doctrine became 
the government, in the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, how 
did the propagandists demean themselves towards the 
government of the Union, and the people of the South? 
Were they fiiithful to the covenants of the one, and to the 
rights of the other ? If the Slave States had been prejudged 
and condemned, what was their conduct towards the people 
of the free States — towards the minorities of the free States ? 

One of the first acts of Mr. Lincoln Avas to suspend the 
functions of the judiciary. Nothing but the venerable age 
aind exalted character of Chief Justice Taney saved him 
from arrest and imprisonment for declaring, on the bench, 
that the acts of the President were unconstitutional and 
void. A man who is justly the pride of the country, who 
dignifies the first judicial office of the nation, was openly 
branded with disloyalty to that Constitution, which Mr. 
Lincoln and all his adherents openly violated at every turn ! 
He was denounced as a traitor, and the vengeance of the 
mob invoked against his life ! And what was his offence? 
An attempt to vindicate the supremacy of the laws for the 
protection of a citizen of the loyal States against tlie arbi- 
trary and unconstitutional acts of the President of the 
United States. Faithful to the Union, he sought, by the 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 33 

exercise of powers vested in liim, as the liead of the judi- 
cial department, to wipe out the stain of usurpation which 
the chief magistrate had imprinted upon the sacred folds 
of the Constitution. His attempt was futile. His orders 
were disregarded. His process could not be served. The 
marshal reported that he " was not permitted to enter the 
gate " of Fort McHenry, where a citizen was imprisoned 
without " process of law/' and in violation of the Consti- 
tution. The reasons assigned by the venerable judge for 
excusing the marshal for not serving the process should be 
engraved upon every monument erected in honor of Ameri- 
can patriots, statesmen and philosoj)hers. He said: 

'' You had the power to summon the posse comitatus to 
aid you in seizing and bringing before the Court the party 
named in the attachment, who would, when so brought in, 
be liable to punishment by fine and imprisonment. But 
where, as in this case, the poiver refusing obedience ivas 
so notoriously superior to any you could command, I hold 
that you are excused from doing more than you have done." 

What power was this that resisted the enforcement of 
the rights of a citizen ? It was the President — the power 
which was lodged in his hands, that he might see to it that 
the laws should be faithfully executed ! It was the govern- 
ment against itself, against the laws, against the Constitu- 
tion ! It was the mob triumphant, by the aid of the Presi- 
dent, in opposition to the laws, against John Merryman ! 
Whatever was left of the old system was trampled under 
foot by this executive act. It was more damaging to the 
integrity of that system than the battles of Manassas and 
Fredericksburg. Battles could not destroy what was de- 
stroyed by this act. Battles may suspend the powers of 
government, here or there ; they do not immolate princi- 
ples or impair the integrity of constitutions. This conduct 
of the President was in harmony with the revolutionary 
theory under which he was elected. He acted in aid of 
that theory. He carried out the resolution at Buifalo, to 
nullify and make void "the third clause of the Constitu- 
tion, whenever applied to the case of a fugitive slave ; " 
he enforced the nullification laws of Massachusetts, ordain- 
ed to carry out that resolution ; he made the government 
an anti-slavery government — a New England government. 
His act was an act of war againSt the Union. The per- 
sonal liberty of John Merryman, and his honored associates, 
in prison, was nothing. The time had come to wield 
power, and make it felt as a means of intimidation — to 
strengthen the new government — to make it absolute — to 
make all the people feel that it was absolute. The conquest 
of the North was as necessary as the conquest of the South. 
The conspirators knew that while they were elected to ofiice 



34 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

by a majority of the people of the North, the development 
of their revolution would throw them back into a misera- 
ble minority. Tlieir purpose was to arm this minority, 
and, by an exercise of power, to force the entire Northern 
people to submit to their revolutionary government. This 
is no speculative theory, but a great historical fact. It is 
sustained by every act of Mr. Lincoln's government affect- 
ing persons or principles. It is sustained by every ante- 
cedent of the party which elected him. It is sustained by 
the speeches of every leader of that party, in or out of 
Congress, at the present day. It is sustained by the pro- 
motion of Abolitionists to command the armies, and the 
proscription of every Unionist, who has won military dis- 
tinction in the field. It ought to be enough to prove the 
justice of this theory, that the new government has created, 
in the place of the old one, an absolute military despotism 
— a despotism which has proscribed every guarantee of per- 
sonal rights contained in the Federal Constitution ; which 
has annulled or disregarded State laws ; which has created 
new offences, unknown to the United States, and then, by 
a sweeping decree, suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus, 
as to all persons " who are now, or hereafter during the 
rebellion, shall be imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, 
military prison or other place of confinement, by any mili- 
tary authority." (See Proc. 24 Sept.) This final act of 
despotic power was only a formality. All rights and guar- 
antees had been previously swept away. The work of i evo- 
lution had been already perfected. It only proclaimed a law 
that had been in existence from the day of the President's 
inauguration. Emancipation had been going on by every 
general in the field, and by every paid agent of the gov- 
ernment, who could steal, rob or plunder. The process did 
not embrace alone the capture of slaves ; it proposed the 
destruction of property of every description, the burning 
of buildings, the waste of estates, the suffering and sacri- 
fice of the people of the slave States, in every imaginable 
form ; for, it was said, by these means we shall ])aralyze 
slavery, and thus deprive it of the power of self-defence. 

Was this not revolution ? Was it the policy of the 
Union that dictated this scheme of plunder, arson and mur- 
der ? Was it not armed Abolitionism ? Could such things 
occur under the old govetnment ? 

All guvei'nments are agencies. This, at least, is the 
American theory. Some exist by prescription, or by 
what is called T)ivine ai)pointment; others by virtue of 
laws ordained by the i)eople. Prescriptive governments, 
as I shall call them, are supposed, nevertheless, to repre- 
sent the will and have the sanction of the masses for whom 
they were created. The rights of the people under the 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 35 

latter are just as sacred, and as safe, it is tliought by many, 
as under the former. I know of no government, of this 
class, which does not profess to represent the will and the 
interests of its constituency. That of Russia, is, perhaps, 
the most completely absolute, in its powers, of all the 
States of Europe. Austria and the Imperial government 
of France are next in rank. Every one of these has been 
surpassed in despotic practice by the government of the 
United States. The absolutism of the latter, judged by 
measures, is more extreme than either of the European 
States referred to. There is less security here, to persons ; 
more arbitrary and causeless arrests and imprisonments ; 
more interference of the executive authority with the duties 
and functions of the judiciary ; more property sacrificed 
by persons and tribunals appointed and created by the 
President ; more government frauds ; more official pecula- 
tions ; and more public demoralization than in either of 
the great absolutistic States mentioned. That these dis- 
creditable and disastrous effects of abolitionism, are not the 
product of legitimate American lOpinions and judgment, is 
more than apparent ; and that they are the fruits of New 
England fanaticism and folly, is susceptible of the clearest 
proof. No calm observer of events in this country, for the 
last quarter of a century, can doubt the justice of this de- 
claration. Personal ambition and selfishness, have united 
with the more honest but misguided followers of G-arrison, 
Phillips and G-reeley, to bring on the present crisis. The 
former class entered the ranks of the fanatics not because 
they concurred in the doctrines of abolitionism, nor yet 
because they really intended to effect its revolutionary 
ends. Their object was to use that school of madmen — 
and hence, we all remember, that for years, there was a 
sort of quasi league between the parties, wearing a very 
cordial aspect just before and at elections, but invariably 
followed by an open rupture. As between the two factions 
it soon became evident that the Abolitionists proper had 
the most votes and the most power. Those who had propa- 
gated anti-slavery, to advance their own political purposes, 
found they had carried over the majority to the minority. 
Under such circumstances it only required a Presidential 
election to enlist on the side of the Abolitionists every fac- 
tion, interest and combination opposed to the dominant 
Democratic party. That a large portion of the persons 
thus enlisted, intended to revolutionize the government, no 
man believes. They contributed, nevertheless, all that 
votes could do to effect this. They placed men in power 
who had again and again declared a purpose to destroy the 
Union. They were guilty of a high offence in a popular 
government, that of aiding to elect to office persons who 



36 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

had avowed doctrines at war with the political system they 
desired to maintain. The conspirators, after they assumed 
the reigns of government, took advantage of this known 
partiality and admiration for the Union, and through its 
influence drew to their support, and to their rebellious and 
treasonable schemes, not only all of this class of persons, 
but also a large portion of the Democratic party. These 
men were perfectly sincere in the aid they gave the admin- 
istration, never doubting its fidelity to the Union, and 
never dreaming, for a moment, that the real enemy to the 
old system was the party they had elected to its offices. 
The loyal sentiment of the North, in this way, was more 
thoroughly duped than the South ; because the interests of 
the latter were directly menaced, and they were forced by 
this menace to assume the defensive. Their secession was 
inopportune ; because their votes, united to the votes of 
Northern Democrats, in both Houses of Congress, were 
suffi.cient to check and defeat the scheme of the conspira- 
tors to invest the executive head with absolute powers. 
Thus, holding the administration at bay, the South, by 
remaining in the Union, would have gained time to pre- 
j)are for the struggle, and, perhaps, ultimately defeat the 
conspirators. The latter result, I believe, might have been 
achieved ; but it is very questionable whether any perma- 
nent adjustment was possible without a resort to arms. 
The mind that directed the abolition movement was es- 
sentially deficient in logical powers. Its insolence, its ten- 
dencies to disregard obligations and duties ; its ignorance 
of the character of the government, and the ends for which 
it was established ; its inherent fanaticism and the pre- 
sumption which these qualities could not fail to develope, 
not only j)rove this, but made any political association with 
it next to impossible. If it had exhibited no other radical 
deficiency, its habitual cunning and want of integrity 
were enough to destroy any union formed by human cove- 
nants. Out of power, they nullified the Constitution and 
resisted the enforcement of Federal laws ; in power, they 
overthrew tlie Constitution and established a military des- 
potism in its place. Out of their hands, the Union was 
an immoral covenant, which no man was bound to recog- 
nize ; in their hands, their despotism is a sacred com- 
pact by wliich minorities agree to be sacrificed by majori- 
ties. Judged b}^ their acts, one would suppose, that the 
Constitution was adopted, with no other jjurpose or end, 
than to efiect the abolition of slaverj- — that it is a funda- 
mental law of a New England anti-slavery society. The 
late message of the President, and every measure of 
his administration, point directly to tliis conclusion. 
That such a government never was ordained by the States ; 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIOlirS. 3T 

that it is a new government, ordained by the abolitionists, 
to all practical intents and purposes, must be apparent 
to every thinking mind. The process by which this 
result has been effected, I have endeavored to trace ; the 
responsibility of the parties to it, I have also endeavored 
to establish. No stream is so long, or so crooked, that its 
source may not be discovered ; no deception and fraud 
are so ingenious and intricate, that they cannot be 
analysed and exposed. The Union was an agreement 
between sovereign States, to form a Nationality, on cer- 
tain specified conditions. Its enemies are those who 
violated those conditions. Such violation made it im- 
possible for the honest parties to the agreement to main- 
tain it. It was not a solid popular nationality — a concrete 
system — it was made of sovereign States, not by sinking 
them in the Union, but by maintaining them as practical 
governments, as the basis of the system — as the legal 
parties to the agreement. It is manifest in this view of 
the subject, that the nullification of the Constitution, by 
the New England States, was an act of revolution, which 
absolved all the other States from obligations to carry out 
the agreement. But an indisposition to disturb the 
government, with which so many great interests were 
identified, induced the other parties to submit, for the 
time, to this infraction of the organic law. But when it 
became obvious tliat such submission only invited 
further and more radical violations of the Constitution, 
and threatened its total subversion, and the employ- 
ment of its powers, not only to disfranchise^ but to 
destroy a great section of the country, resistance be- 
came a necessity and a high duty. This resistance 
should not have been confined to the Slave States. They 
were the immediate objects of assault and sacrifice ; but as 
these involved the forfeiture of faith, and the violation of 
solemn covenants, by parties to the Union, resistance 
became the duty of every honest man in the nation. It 
was not a Northern and Southern question, but a question 
of integrity and fair dealing ; and as the North became an 
implicated party, it was its duty, as a section, to vindicate 
its honor by acts of prompt resistance. We have advanced 
too far in the science of political ethics, to maintain, in 
case of a violation of the covenants of offensive and de- 
fensive Treaties, between States, that the duty of resistance 
should be confined to the injured party. The benefits and 
advantages of such a compact are reciprocal, and they 
impose, upon the parties to it, reciprocal duties and 
obligations, to maintain its integrity, in the event of its 
infraction by either party. When the Puritan States 
nullified the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and 



38 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

made it a penal offence for one of their turbulent citizens 
to aid in its enforcement, it became the duty of every other 
State in the Confederacy, at once, and by the most ener- 
getic measures, to force the delinquents to comply with 
their obligations, or leave the Union. Their failure to 
do this, stamped upon the federal system an indelible 
stain, which no subsequent effort could remove. It was 
thus tainted with disloyalty, infidelity, injustice, and fraud. 
It introduced into the government, and canonized, a class 
of men, whose avowed purpose was to destroy it. It gave 
the key to the house-breaker, and told him where the 
valuables were concealed. This was revolution. No 
system of government could stand such a shock. I do not 
believe armed resistance was necessary ; certainly not, if 
the Middle and Western States had done their duty. 
They saw, or ought to have seen, that one great step 
towards the overthrow of the Union — one which could 
hardly fail to effect that cherished object — was to taint 
it with injustice. This was effectually done by the Puri- 
tans ; and it was accomplished without a single remon- 
strance, as far as I can learn, from the free States. The 
integrity of the latter was involved ; but local partisan 
interests, it was feared, might be injured by the adoption 
of immediate measures, and these must be taken care of, 
even if the government should be sacrificed. It is vain to 
deny that partisan causes, in this way, have blunted the 
sensibilities, and lowered the toUe of all Nortliern society. 
That there are great numbers of individual exceptions, 
embracing, in some cases, whole communities, I do not 
doubt. But partisanism is, nevertheless, a sort of epi- 
demic in all the Northern States. The question is, not 
what is right, but what will be most taking with the 
people. Every sail is set to the popular breeze. By this 
process, demagogues and adventurers alone are promoted 
to office, and give character to the State. No heresy is too 
monstrous to find advocates ; no dishonesty too flagrant 
to be sanctioned. It is not a question of integrity ; but 
whether the proposed measure is one which has found 
favor with the people. This is no exaggeration of practical 
politics in tlie North ; and, althougli not ap])licable, to 
the same extent, to tlie South, is more or less true, there. 
It is an evil inherent in all representative or democratic 
governments. More positive virtue is certainly necessary, 
in such governments, than under monarchical systems. 
The reason for tliis is found more perfectly illustrated in 
the United States than elsewhere. We have armed the 
demagogue witli power, and made him not only our 
governor, but our teacher. He is in tlie pulpit, at the bar, 
in the school-house, in the legislature, on the bencli, and 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 39 

he is now President of the United States. We have 
priestly demagogues, legal demagogues, judicial dema- 
gogues, and Congressional demagogues. Our Executive 
Magistrate is a cross between the demagogue and the 
fanatic, with a decided leaning to the former. He has been 
called honest : time will prove that his cunning has been 
mistaken for honesty, his plain speech, for candor, and his 
blunt ways, for sincerity. He is the representative of 
abolitionists and demagogues. That is all there is in him. 
Too weak to devise schemes of treason against the Union, 
he is admirably fitted, by his moral nature, to carry out 
the programme of revolution arranged by others. When 
nature denies attributes of intellect and honesty to man, 
she is apt to compensate him by endowments of intrigue 
and cunning. These are Mr. Lincoln's great qualities of 
head and heart. No management of the elements of dis- 
union could have been better or more successful than his. 
Battles lost, for his purpose, were better than battles won. 
What he wanted was protracted war and irreconcilable 
differences. By no other means was it possible to over- 
turn the old system, and organize a despotism in its place. 
The disgraceful rout at Manassas was the grand triumph 
of Abolitionism. It was equal to a half a million recruits 
to his new government ; it turned the heads and hearts of 
ten million men against the South. Power was then 
literally thrust into his hands. The people demanded that 
he should wield it against themselves ! Was ever anything 
more opportune ? Did a great people ever before determine 
to disfranchise themselves, and to assure the completeness 
of their work, actually build up a military despotism upon 
the ruins of their ancient free institutions? The gulf is, 
indeed, narrow between liberty and despotism ! 

Having traced, with some minuteness, and in detail, the 
great Revolution inaugurated and consummated under the 
auspices and management of the Puritan States, and 
referred to the counter revolution of the Slave States, I 
think it opportune to make a few suggestions of a hypo- 
thetical nature, touching the future of the regions of the 
Country, North and South. A full examination of the 
past convinces me that the only ground of real difficulty 
between the Free and the Slaves States is found in the tur- 
bulent and offensive nature of the Puritan mind. At the 
first glance, this may be regarded as an insurmountable 
obstacle in the way of fellowship between the people of the 
two sections. But a moment's reflection is enough to 
convince the reader that it is not so. The Puritan States 
may be cut off from the confederacy without at all affect- 
ing the strength or beauty of the system. They contribute 
nothing to the national character, except, possibly, what 



40 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

we gain by extravagant self-laudation and praise. There 
is nothing in New England which is necessary to give 
strength to the Federal G-overnment, — nothing which is 
necessary to complete a confederation in any sense what- 
ever. The Government of the Union was so conducted as 
to confer upon the six small States of the East quite all 
the wealth and position they have gained. They are 
nothing hut an extended manufacturing establishment. 
We do not need such establishments. We can not much 
longer, in any event, afford to keep them up. We have 
enriched them by our bounties : but there must, sooner or 
later, be an end of this. England is quite able to do our 
mechanical work. She has a great many very poor, but 
expert, mechanics. We shall be doing them and ourselves 
a great service by buying their fabrics and machinery. 
This kind of trade will stimulate commerce and agricul- 
ture. We shall have all the benefits of low wages, with- 
out being burdened with the support of that class of society. 
The construction of a government on free-trade principles, 
— excluding New England, which must, sooner or later, 
be done, — would go far to harmonize all disputes, and 
would certainly assure the most complete and successful 
industry which the world has ever seen. There is no 
obstacle in the way of either reconciliation, or future har- 
mony, if the Puritan States were removed. The great 
West is yet in its infanc3^ It has, so far, submitted 
quietly to the dictation and plunder of the New England 
States. This can not last long. They will not always, 
surely, consent to be taxed thirty or forty millions a year 
for the benefit of what the fanatics call "domestic manu- 
factures ;" and once in a half century, at least, be saddled 
with a debt of a thousand millions of dollars, to get them 
out of the difficulties engendered wholly by New England. 
The present complications, then, which demand a solu- 
tion — which must, ere long, have a solution — ought to 
indicate to the Middle and Western States that the time 
is rapidly approaching when it will be their duty — just as 
it is the duty of any man to resist robbery — to force the 
Puritan States to rely on themselves. That is all the pun- 
isliraent one has the lieart to infiict upon them. Take 
away from tliem tlie peculiar advantages which the iederal 
system secures them. Let theiu live by their own labor, 
in competition with the labor of others. Let them have 
every advantage which the past lias given them. They 
have accumuhited wealth : it is theirs. They have built 
U]) great nianulacturiiig establisliments : they are theirs. 
They have woiiderlul industry, economy, and business ca- 
pacities. Give tliem the full benefit of these, but nothing 
more. They are really too good to live in peace with the 



THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 41 

rest of mankind ! Let them set up for themselves. If 
they can manufacture cheaper than others, they may 
always he sure of a market. This can he tried only by 
making New England an independent confederacy. For 
one, I would not only rejoice to see this, hut would feel 
most confident that the great Western and Southern States 
would rejoice with me. Five years' experience under such 
an order of things would show the benefits of the arrange- 
ment. It would enrich the great agricultural States. It 
would make them free. It would stimulate local manu- 
factures. It would distribute labor. It would reduce — 
greatly reduce — the expenses of living. The money they 
would thus save in fifty years would doubly pay the 
present national debt. Why not, then, obey a great ne- 
cessity of the future, and put New England out of the 
Union now ? There may be danger in delay. The great 
West cannot, and will not, be cut off from the navigation 
and markets of the Mississippi. A little time, and they 
will turn to the South. There are no affinities between 
them and New England. That which now binds them to 
the East is the railway, a power kindred to that which 
binds them to the Valley of the Mississippi. The relations 
between the Puritan States and the West are that of 
landlord and tenant. The former own everything, and 
make their own terms. They compel the West to buy of 
them, and to pay their own prices. The Grovernment of 
the United States says, "you must buy of New England ; 
for we wish to make New England so rich that they can 
compete with the manufacturers of Old England." The 
West does not care a fig about the manufactures of either 
of the rival parties. She wants to buy her goods in the 
cheapest market ; and this she will do as certain as the 
West is great and growing. Make New England a sepa- 
rate government, and the great States of the South and 
West will be relieved of a burden of expense, which can 
not fail in ten years to show lioio Neio England got rich. 

Self-preservation is the first law of nature. It is as ap- 
plicable to states as to individuals. The Government of 
the Union had all the advantages which it is possible to 
confer upon, or exist in, a State. Her system was liberal ; 
her geographical position conducive to peace, and, in the 
event of war, wonderfully defensive, if not inaccessible ; 
her climates various ; her products valuable and always 
marketable ; her Grovernment respected, and her people 
prosperous and happy. There has not been one single 
source of real discord out of New England. If the eco- 
nomical policy of the Union was oppressive and unsatisfac- 
tory to the agricultural districts, the burden fell upon a 
liberal, uncomplaining, patriotic people, who never, except 



42 THE DUAL REVOLUTIONS. 

the turbulent State of South Carolina, for a moment, 
thought of disturbing the organic system, as a remedy. 
The incurable malady, then, being found in a mere limb 
of the body — the vital organs being sound and healthy — 
why not cut it offf The application of the knife, instead 
of a resort to the materia medica, is the true course ; 
because more than three-fourths of a century have proven 
the incurability of the disease. No people, — in plain 
words, — will ever be able to live in harmony with the 
Puritan States. If they are wiser and better than the rest 
of mankind, it is just as fatal to harmonious fellowship as 
if they occupied the reverse of this position. They are 
utterly unlike other people. Their tempers and disposi- 
tions are so entirely difierent from those of the Middle, 
Western, and Southern States, as to render fellowship 
with them, under the same government, impossible. The 
remedy I have suggested is simple, honest, and just. It is 
to let Nerv England alone ! Let her try her separate fortunes. 
If she will quarrel, let her quarrel with New England. If 
.she will turn back upon herself and destroy her own works, 
let us be exempt from her lunacy, while the paroxysm is on. 
A confederated government in this country, being a 
•simple government of independent States, united for specific 
general objects, cannot be maintained unless all the parties 
to it strictly discharge the obligations of the compact. 
Such a government will always be the strongest, or the 
weakest, in the world. If there is unity of purpose, and 
action, it will be invincible in respect to its aggressive and 
productive powers. The effort of the parties to it should 
be to exhibit generosity and fidelity in all federal relations. 
Where, on the other hand, these great qualities are want- 
ing, it is witli the State, as with individuals, a sure sign 
of demoralization, strife, and weakness. The Government 
of the Union has existed for three-quarters of a century, 
a,nd, by maintaining its perfect integrity, might have had 
a career of prosperity and greatness, not only without 
parallel in the history of nations, but so successful, that, 
by the force of example alone, it would, within fifty years, 
have governed the world. I do not mean to assert that all 
the nations would have been drawn into the Union ; be- 
cause that is an impossibility. They Avould, nevertheless, 
have been influenced and controlled by its example. This 
we have lost ; and it is the greatest of our losses in the 
present suicidal war. It is not only a loss to us, but it is 
a loss to every liberal mind throughout the world. Great 
princi])les speak throngli governmental forms, far more 
effectively than tlirougli individuals. They must have de- 
monstration by action, to make tliem influential and pow- 
erful. This consideration, I humbly suggest, has been to 



PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 43 

mucli overlooked by the men of both sections of the Union. 
They have been too much absorbed in selfishness and pride 
of position, to give due weight to the high interests in- 
volved in the late Grovernment of the Union. They have 
overlooked the interest which liberalism everywhere had 
in the maintenance of that Government. I suppose such 
considerations as these never had the least weight with, 
perhaps never entered the minds of, the Puritan States. 
Their conduct in the Union has evinced nothing but sharp 
practice and dissolute political morals. The first fifty 
years of its existence, they worked alone to secure undue 
advantages ; the balance of the time they have devoted to 
its overthrow. So that, in every light in which their con- 
duct is seen, they have been most unworthy associates. 
Their ejection from the Government, then, under the inex- 
orable logic of events, is certain, sooner or later. The 
truth can not always be concealed : it will surely work its 
own way to light. There is too much cool reflection, too 
much sound sense, and too much honesty in the great body 
of the American people, to be held many years longer, as 
dupes and tools, by that meddlesome race of political 
sharpers and thimble-riggers. They have never contrib- 
uted any thing to the people which could not have been 
obtained, on better terms, of others. To have something 
to do with every man's business, and contrive to turn it to 
good account, is the life of a New England man. He is a 
disturber and meddler by nature. He goes everywhere — 
talks to everybody — makes all the difficulties he can 
foment — and then turns everything to his own profit. This 
kind of character can do best by himself. Let him alone. 
Build up a high wall round his dominions. Confine his 
labors to his own territories and his own people. 



PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 



The writer of these pages is a Northern man — has been 
a citizen, for thirty-five years, of the State of New York. 
With little ambition for political life, and not over- 
burdened with confidence in the public men of the country, 
North and South, he has been an unprejudiced witness of 
all the great events, which, in his judgment, have led to 



44 PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 

the present disastrous war. He has ever beeu a Unionist, 
not for the benefits and advantages alone, which the con- 
stitutional government assured to the two sections now at 
war, not because he believed the system absolutely perfect ; 
nor yet on account of its sacred origin, but because in 
the Union of the States, he thought he saw the power 
and the disjDOsition to uphold free government in the very 
face of a world of Absolutism ; and, that if stricken down 
here, there would be left no hope of maintaining it else- 
where. The Union, in this sense, was not for the Ameri- 
can people alone; it was organized freedom for all the 
world. Freedom could speak here, could act here. It 
was a teacher, a producer and an exemplar. It had power 
to defend itself, and propagate by example, the great prin- 
ciple upon which it was organized. Entertaining these 
views, it was quite natural to regard with distrust, the in- 
troduction into the government of doctrines, which a large 
portion of the j^eople North, and all the people South, 
believed would destroy it. That Abolitionism would 
eifectually do this, if carried into the Government, no man 
of sense could doubt. The question was, how far it was 
the intention of its advocates to push the doctrine. Many 
believed it was used onlv to advance personal ambition ; 
others were convinced that, although that might be its 
aim, when weak, it would, from the nature of things, be 
impossible to limit its action thus, when strong. Others 
regarded it as pre-eminently a New England opinion, 
which the politicians of the Middle and Western States 
might use, always retaining the power to check and subdue 
it, when it should menace the integrity or stability of the 
government. Others still — and as the sequel abundantly 
proves, they were the wise and patriotic men of tlie 
nation — regarded the rising storm, as not only threat- 
ening, but destined, in its progress, to destroy tlic Union. 
The authenticity of the New, is established by the 
pro))liecies of the Old, Covenant. This kind of testimony, 
applied to political aifairs, may not be as conclusive as 
when invoked in behalf of Christianity. What it wants 
in credibility, as a mere political prophecy, is, however, 
more than supplied by the living testimony of men and 
things of the present generation. Political predictions 
signify nothing more tlian that the liuuian mind is able 
to comprehend, at a glance, the active forces of the State, 
and distinguish which of i.hese will control the others in 
the future, and what tlie result will be. This kind of fore- 
knowledge, when recorded in advance, is liigli testimony, 
because it was so uttered, and because historical events 
have determined its substantial verification ; and shown 
that its author was an unj)rejudiced observer of men and 



PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 45 

tilings — was able to discover the motives of the one and 
dispositions of the other. 

It required little sagacity in a citizen of this country, to 
foretell the doom of the republic, under the operation of 
the principles, which have been warring against it, with 
such terrible energy, especially since 1854, when the great 
North formally organized its forces, on the basis alone of 
the Abolition of Slavery. At that period, the reader will 
remember, we had five distinct political parties, viz : the 
hard democrats, the soft democrats, the whigs, the know- 
nothings or Natives, and the Abolitionists. The latter 
party made a powerful and successful effort — a purely 
Northern effort — to absorb them all into one grand anti- 
slavery organization. There was no difficulty in effecting 
this object, so far as the know-nothings were concerned, 
because that party was a mere scrofulous eruption upon 
the body politic, which must kill or cure in a day. Its 
seat was in New England, where the people were anti- 
union and anti-slavery. There Nativeism meant temperance 
to-day, abolitionism to-morrow and disunion the next day. 
They preserved their forms to act upon other societies, and 
to influence them to a merger with the parent organiza- 
tion, of which Mr. Seward was the Chief. They succeeded, 
and thus was swept out of sight an organization, which, 
a year or two before, had domineered over many of the 
States of the Union, North and South. This result of Native- 
ism in the North, of course, destroyed it in the Slave States. 
The next step, in the progress of Abolitionism, under 
the leadership of Mr. Seward, was the absorption of the old 
whig party, a work which was accomplished at Syracuse, 
New York, in October, 1855. Two conventions were 
arranged to meet there — an abolition convention and a 
whig convention — avowedly for the purpose of making 
separate nominations for State officers, really for the pur- 
pose of signing articles of capitulation, on the part of the 
whigs, as a party, to the disunionists. All this was done 
in the most formal and technical manner. It completed 
the work of consolidation, so far as to embrace in the Abo- 
lition organization, every faction, interest and secret order, 
opposed to the democratic party. 

The North was, then, with its solid New England 
majorities — its triumphs, the previous year, in New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, 
under the banners of abolitionism, perfectly organized 
against the Constitution. The arrangements to which 
reference is made, however, alarmed the people for the 
safety of the government. The elections of the following 
month, indicated the popular reaction, by withdrawing 



46 PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 

the great States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, 
and Illinois, from tlie conspirators. 

[from the new YORK HERALD, AUGUST 17, 1855.] 

-In tlie history of American politics, there is to>e 
found no such menace to the institutions of the country 
as now threaten their early ^nd complete overthrow. The 
first act of the conspirators is to place the Union ol the 
States in complete suhordination to Anti-sa very. The 
effort is to force on the country the organization ot paities 

bounded hy the free and the «^-- .f.^^^^' ^ V^./^^/o 
their points by the numerical majorities of the NoUli , to 
s^^vJTe Gonltitution^to raise the power of such majorities 
Intoorrm^otent control, and then to plead the same m justi- 

fication of their acts. , 

- It is a war upon the institutions of the South-a war 
upon slavery, and a war upon the Union, to effect the 
objects they have m view." 

[from the new YORK HERALD, NOVEMBER 18, 1855.] 

-The distinctive Seward abolition party is essential dis- 
union It is based on principles whose tendency is, and 
whose effect must be, the destruction of/he government 
and all its interests-its commerce, its railroads, its manu- 
?rctuils L mechanic arts, its telegraphs its mora^power, 
and, above all, its position before the wo 11 as tl e lepie 
sentative of liberal ideas and popular rights -^.^^esc aie 
?he sacrifices required of the American people to g-ive effect 
the Eutopian^olicy of Mr. Reward-to his mad cr..a 
against the Constitution, with a view of ef eating his anti 

''^^:^n comes home to existing P-ty sub^visions 
with peculiar force : Can a cit zen ot the Umted S^tes- 
an American-occupy any <>tlier ground a that ot 
Ln«tnitv to the Seward movement, and do Ins duty to ins 
0.1 -^' ^t' Ivemeni looks to a dissolution f //- f-- 
::i means to an end. Those, then, -/-J^f-^^f ^ ^' ^^^ 
not forms, must see that in reali y there ^,f Z^^; ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
parties in this country-those who suppo t ^ gove n 
Lnt, and those who seek its overthrow. ^^'^ f^^^^^^^^^'^ 
occupy one of these extremes; the l^^^'^^^; ^|\^,^^^'^^^^' 
Americans, the whigs, in truth, occupy the f}'^'- 

- It is manifest, indeed , that the public m^id is gi adu.ill.> , 
but certainly, approachi^ig Has one 9r<^ J^^^ l\l' 
natural, and, indeed, inevitable that it «hou be so 
because it involves all the highest interest ^ V 1 «';'P^^: 

and in every sense must be ^^^g^^^-^.^^^^^^^^^V i -^,12^^^^^ 
tion of the day. In reaching it, individuals aie leciuued 



PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 47 

to pass the severe ordeal of putting their prejudices in 
subjection to their reason and their patriotism. 

"Those who, without exactly knowing why, have come 
to regard the institution of slavery as a hateful sacrifice 
of the rights of man ; those who have been taught to 
believe, that in the organization of the government, the 
slaveholders have secured undue advantages — in short, 
those who have stood upon the extreme North, and have 
listened only to partisan appeals and misrepresentations, 
in regard to affairs in the South, and have imbibed strong 
prejudices against the men and the local institutions of 
that section of our common Union, must make up their 
minds to see, hear, and give effect, to the truth, or con- 
sent to an early overthrow of the Union. The government 
cannot exist in the midst of so much error. It must fall by 
the weight of falsehood and misrepresentation ; because 
these point directly to hostilities and civil war ! ' ' 

[from the herald, OCTOBER, I860.] 

" Put this republican party into the White House, and 
before it can be ousted it may compass the control of every 
department of the federal government. Then, the repub- 
lican doctrine of negro equality would be apt to assume a 
shape so revolting as to 'precipitate the South into a 
revolution/ the terrible consequences of which would 
defy all human calculations. And so, for the sake of the 
Union, and the peace of the Union, the suffrages of all 
Northern men devoted to the Union should be cast in the 
way best adapted to defeat Lincoln, whose election will be 
an anti-slavery triumph which may drive the South out 
of the Union." 

These warnings were regarded, when uttered, as mere 
alarms, intended to frighten the people, and lead them into 
the support of the Democratic party. We were all called, 
in derision, " Union-savers," and told that the South could 
not be forced into secession. The power of majorities was 
invoked, witli an avowed purpose to provincialize the slave 
States ! It was said, at the great mass meeting at Port- 
land^ in 1855, that the North must be educated, instructed, 
and, if need be, forced into Abolitionism — must be taught 
to condemn and despise the immoralities of the Federal 
Constitution ! 

It was these treasonable and emphatic declarations, in 
connection with previous acts, that led thoughtful men to 
the conclusion that the government of the Union was about 
to be sacrificed, and a new government created by the 
traitors, in its place. This has been accomplished, at a 



48 PERSONAL AND POLITICAL. 

cost of men and blood, which no human power could have 
foreseen. As a work of slaughter, it is without parallel 
and beyond the means of explanation, except on the basis 
that slaughter is its policy and its triumph. It ordained 
a Revolution in the North, and has created a counter Revo- 
lution. It has conquered the North, and seeks the conquest 
of the South. 

It is said there is no disease without a remedy. This 
maxim of medical science ought to be true when applied to 
political affairs. Where, then, is the specific for the fright- 
ful malady which has dethroned the reason and prostrated 
the body of the American nation ? Tiie future keeps its 
own secrets ; the power of prophecy is not given to man, 
in such times as these. The mariner cannot take observa- 
tions in the midst of the storm. We must, then, rely 
alone on the inborn freedom and bravery of the people of 
the States, to beat back the strong hand of power, which 
is now suspended over us. That this will be no easy work, 
we are admonished, by the fact that the people have armed 
the tyrants, not only by the sanction of legal forms, but 
placed the sword and the purse of the nation in their 
hands ! Nine hundred millions of dollars have just been 
voted to them by a venal legislature. A million and a 
quarter of men have been sent to them by the States. All 
that men and money can do, to build up a central despot- 
ism, has been done ; all that pride, insolence and tyranny 
can do, to make the people feel the power of that despotism, 
has been done by the existing administration. Every lead- 
ing committee of the Senate is presided over by a New 
England man. Every measure of either House is dictated 
by New England men. The Army is controlled in all its 
appointments ; the Executive Department is governed in 
all its details; the people are ruled over in all the various 
relations of life, by New England men. We have a Puri- 
tan system of politics, of police, of laws, of government, 
of everything. It is New England that governs New 
York, Ohio, and tlie great States of the Valley of the Mis- 
sissippi ! This Autocrat of Fanaticism is not satisfied to 
rule our political interests, but seeks to be our moral and 
religious instructor. 

If these views are correct, they suggest an Armistice to 
the belligerents as the first great stcj) in the way of recon- 
ciliation. The ])roclaniation of such a measure would be 
received with intense joy throughout the country. It 
would suspend the agency of armies in the management 
of our political aifairs, and restore the councils of peace 
and the influence of reason and patriotism, the only 

,' legitimate authority known to the institutions and habits 

'^ of the American people. 



O 



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